


The Courage of Stars

by JG Firefly (Phoenix_Call)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/F, Marauders era, previously titled: At The End
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2018-10-11 11:43:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 71,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10464135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Call/pseuds/JG%20Firefly
Summary: Laura's not sure if she's cut out for the world of magic, but that doesn't mean she's going to give up--either on her studies at Hogwarts, or on figuring out the many secrets Carmilla seems to be hiding.Or: the Marauders-era AU no one asked for.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set during the Marauders era at Hogwarts, but the Marauders--and most familiar HP names--are side/background characters. 
> 
> There will be a happy ending eventually, I promise.
> 
> 2018 Update: This story currently updates once per month, with plans to post on a much more frequent basis once I have the final third of it squared away.

She could not feel the stone under her feet. They were bare—they had been for days—and it showed. The numbness seemed to resonate throughout her, though, not playing favorites with any particular limb or region. There had been a point when she was certain it was over, and that she would not wake again... but her eyes had opened once more, and here she was. 

Like someone that had tipped past the edge of starving, she no longer felt the madness of the torture, no longer screamed or felt her thoughts spinning. As if the color had been sucked out, the world felt dull at the edges, like she could tilt and the whole of her existence would pour out into a murky puddle.

It was a very odd feeling.

The staircase was long, or at least it felt that way, for her head kept bobbing with every jolt, her knees hitting the walls as she was man-handled about the turns. The spiral was narrow, and her captors had to continuously re-adjust their grip at her elbows.

Perhaps a few days ago she would have considered taking advantage—fighting back while they were distracted. A few days ago, she might have still had the will to live. Now, though, she found that she did not really care where she was being taken. Even the faintest curiosity seemed too much effort, like her skull would crack with the effort of _interest_.

They paused, one of the men tapping his wand against the doorknob of a very large, very heavy-looking door, and it occurred to her that they had stopped moving, stopped traveling down. The lock made a metallic click that seemed utterly out of place, but the hinges made up for the dainty sound, creaking in a near-roar as the door swung open before them.

They tossed her in, and her shoulder hit the floor hard, her skull cracking and sending stars spinning across her vision. For a moment, she mused that maybe _this_ would be how she died, and how maybe it wouldn’t be so bad… but then the door slammed, and her vision cleared.

She did not sit up, letting her body lay sprawled as it had fallen, her hands resting in a dusty collection of hay scraps. Her breath seemed to rattle, when she let it out—a necessity rather than a conscious decision—and it stirred the dust such that she had to blink against the water that built up in her eyes.

And then she noticed the figure.

She sat up slowly, her expression blank, her arms breaking into pins and needles at the unexpected pressure. There was someone else in the tiny room with her, someone with their back turned and their shoulders hunched. Their silhouette was cast in sharp relief against the glow of moonlight that broke in from the sliver of grated window.

It was night, apparently, and this was news to her. She had lost track of the date some time ago. The ghost of a spasm shook down her spine, and she curled away from it instinctively, a tiny whimper slipping free.

The form turned, then, and the whimper turned into a yelp, her back slamming hard into the wall and her palms slapping against the stone behind her.

The girl’s pale, white face seemed to shimmer in the dim light, curtains of matted, dark hair falling down over her eyes. Her chin was a dark, glistening crimson—and her teeth seemed to glow, jaws parted in a snarl and canines sharp like fangs.

A word—a _name_ —caught in the gulp of her lungs, her lips parting but no sound making it out, for the girl was upon her in a flash, teeth burying themselves in the flesh of her neck with a sickening, wet _shnick_.

Eyes wide, her breath rattled out as a question, as a last gasp of disbelief.

She had expected to die.

And yet, she had not expected Carmilla.


	2. Carefully Laid Plans

_Spring of 1973 (Third Year)_

“She’s glaring at you,” came the amused mutter from her right. Laura Hollis turned, eyes sweeping past the ginger flop of LaFontaine’s hair to find a set of dark eyes locked on her. The girl did not turn away, nor look fazed at being caught in the act. If anything, her eyebrows seemed to lift a little, as if in challenge.

Laura rolled her eyes and turned her focus back to the parchment before her.

“It would take more than a look for her to keep me from winning that Cup,” she hissed back.

From LaFontaine’s other side, Perry made a low, tutting sound in the back of her throat. Her nose was practically pressed to her paper, her quill scratching with dangerous speed. There were little flecks of ink on her cheek.

“Chill,” urged LaF, giving her an elbow in the ribs. “We’re _studying,_ not taking a test.”

Perry’s eyes narrowed, and she lifted her head and straightened her back, squaring her shoulders such that she looked the very picture of posture. To Laura, she just looked uncomfortable—not that she would voice such an opinion aloud.

“We are studying _for_ a test. And if you keep distracting one another, you won’t finish the practice questions before class lets out, which means you won’t know what you need to ask Professor Flitwick, which means you will instead pester _me_ while I try to finish the Potions assignment tonight.”

“Uh, potions assignment?” Laura gulped. Her alarm earned a reproachful stare, rife with judgment.

“Not due until next week,” LaF prompted quickly, under their breath. Laura deflated. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Thank goodness. Don’t scare me like that, Perry.”

Perry sniffed. “If you two insist on doing all of your work at the last minute, you won’t be prepared for exams. And I won’t help you—I’ll let you fail. That will teach you.”

LaFontaine snorted. “You wouldn’t let us _fail_. You love us too much. Maybe you’d let us sink to ‘Acceptable’ or even ‘Poor,’ but you’d dig us out before we stooped to ‘Troll.’”

“Don’t test me,” Perry snipped, and her hair flounced as she dropped her nose back to the page.

LaF watched her a moment, and then leaned in close at Laura’s side and hissed, “We _already_ tested her. Last year… and the year before that…”

Laura hid her smile, biting back a chuckle before re-reading the questions on the chalkboard. Professor Flitwick shuffled past, stopping to speak with Rita Turnwell, who had a stuttering question on summoning charms.

She wasn’t worried about exams. Not really, anyway. Yes, she and LaF would likely be up until the crack of dawn reading Perry’s meticulous notes and attempting to understand the complex magic they’d been studiously day-dreaming through over the course of the year… but it would all turn out fine in the end. What Laura was truly worried about—a far more pressing issue, really—was the Quidditch match on Saturday morning.

Hufflepuff was boasting particularly good Chasers this year, and if Gryffindor fell, the odds were high that the Cup would fall into Ravenclaw’s hands—which was completely unacceptable.

No team with a Chaser as dreadful as Carmilla Karnstein deserved to win anything.

Almost subconsciously, she swiveled in her seat, eyes narrowing in on the other girl. Dark hair cascading onto her parchment, she appeared to be doodling absently rather than working on anything serious. Her face, resting in the cup of her palm, expressed utter boredom. Laura scowled as Professor Flitwick swept past her, failing to comment on her lack of dedication.

She was his favorite, and Laura felt a wave of dislike that she knew he did not deserve. He was a good professor. Possibly one of the best at Hogwarts.

To combat her bitterness, she spun back to the front, glaring at her messy handwriting and the splotches of ink that had leaked off her quill and into the margins. One section had smudged, and it now looked as though she thought there was great importance in ‘swinging and flipping’ when performing levitation charms.

“We should go to the library to finish this,” Perry declared, the moment they had been dismissed. The words jarred Laura from her thoughts. She had been counting down until the end of class for several minutes, running through flight patterns in her head and drawing Quaffles in the columns of her notes rather than taking in any of the words.

LaF made a face. “Can’t it wait until later?” they said, at the same time as Laura cut in with “I can’t—I’ve got practice.”

Perry’s brow got the little crease in the middle that it always got when Laura brought up Quidditch. _But how could that possibly be more important?_ she always seemed to be thinking.

“Well,” she said tersely, “I guess it will just be the two of us, then.”

“But—” LaF started to say, shooting Laura a look of betrayal. They didn’t get the chance to finish the protest, because Perry hooked their arm rather menacingly, and swept them off up the corridor.

Laura winced guiltily. Yet, an extra skip slipped into her step on her way down the stairs, through the halls, and out onto the familiar path to the Quidditch Pitch. LaFontaine would be fine—once Perry let them break for dinner—and whatever success they had at studying they would surely pass onto Laura later that night, complete with a recap of every maddening thing Perry had said and done.

_“Sometimes I just don’t get her,”_ LaF would grumble, glaring at the pages of precise notes Perry would leave them—having safely stowed away her complete homework in order to ‘remove the temptation’ so they would ‘actually learn the material.’

Despite their words, Laura suspected LaF _got_ Perry just fine.

It was a perfect evening for Quidditch. The sun was still hovering over the horizon, the days stretching with the approach of summer, and the clouds that had blanketed the sky during their Herbology lesson that morning had been swept away by the faintest of chilly breezes. The sky was awash with pink and orange and indigo, now, and clear as could be.

Laura didn’t even mind the encroaching cool of dusk as she soared up into the open air, closing her eyes and letting the sensation take her over. It was like an elevator, or a roller coaster, but not quite. It was at once vastly disquieting—the openness around her, the ground falling away—and deeply familiar. The tug in her gut was rife with memories, and she smiled stupidly to herself as she blinked her eyes back open and swiveled in mid-air, much higher than she had intended to climb. The castle was laid out in full glory, lights already flickering in a few windows of Gryffindor Tower.

Somewhere far below, a piercing whistle cut through her serenity, and she dropped into a quick descent.

Their last Chaser had finally arrived, accompanied by his usual trio of comrades. The boys claimed seats high up in the stands, cheering rowdily. Laura noted the way the new kid swept his hand through his already unkempt hair, tousling it as though he’d been flying for hours. She rolled her eyes.

_Second years._

“Alright, team, listen up!” Danny Lawrence towered over them, six feet of intimidating smolder. She was in full Quidditch gear—despite this having been branded a ‘practice’—and her arms were on her hips as she surveilled them. There was something disapproving in the set of her jaw, though that was hardly unusual.

“We are one game away from the Quidditch Cup. I don’t need to remind any of you that Gryffindor has not won the Cup in _seven years._ We don’t just want this win, we _need_ this win—and it is up to each-and-every-one-of-you—” she pronounced each word carefully, making unsettling eye contact with each team member in turn. “—to do your part.”

Laura met the Captain’s stare with an eyebrow raise, crossing her arms. She was more than ready to do whatever it took—Danny didn’t need to intimidate _her_ into wanting the win.

There was little she wouldn’t do to wipe that infuriating smirk off of Carmilla’s face.

As if she understood, Danny gave her a minute nod before lifting her chin and continuing her speech: “We need at least seventy points _before_ we catch the Snitch. Ravenclaw has six hundred and twenty points. We have four hundred. And if we do not score at least ninety points total… we are coming in dead last.”

She paused, as if to let that information sink in—as though she had not been professing it in every waking moment of the past month. Laura herself had been cornered on Tuesday between classes to be ‘inspired’ about how intensely she needed to be preparing.

“We will not be letting that happen. Johnson, you’re going to keep Kirsch occupied and away from that Snitch. Fake him out. Take him for a ride. I don’t care; have some fun. But you _do not catch that Snitch until I say so_. Carter, Pearce! I want Turkwater out of the match. Do what you have to.”

Melanie Carter raised an eyebrow. Davie Pearce grinned and rubbed his hands together.

“Hollis,” Danny practically growled, “You’re the best damn Keeper this team has ever had, but this week I don’t care about saves. I care about returns. Don’t block the Quaffle, catch it. Get it back to us so we can put points on the board. I want precision, I want speed, I want coordination. Anyone who can’t give me that should get off this pitch.”

No one moved. Laura, like her fellow teammates, was all-too-familiar with Danny’s overzealous coaching. When Laura had joined the team the year before, Davie had warned her that their newly-promoted Captain was deeply competitive. At the time, he had suggested that she would ‘get into the groove of things,’ and calm down eventually.

Davie had been wrong. If anything, Danny had become more obsessed over the course of the past two years.

“I’ve put together a series of practice drills that we’re going to run through—and we will stay out here until we’ve got them perfect. Let’s go.”

* * *

They did not get the drills perfect.

They stayed on the pitch until well after ten o’clock, gritting their teeth through all of Danny’s critiques, until Professor McGonagall appeared, called them down, and berated them for risking illness with such an important game looming. Then she sent them back to the Tower—thankfully sans punishment—but not before Danny extracted a promise from them all to meet again Friday afternoon for one final practice.

“Hey,” LaF cried, snagging Laura’s wrist before she could drop her next ingredient into her cauldron. “It’s supposed to be beetle _wings_ , not legs.”

“Oh,” Laura gulped. Her cauldron bubbled ominously. It was a goopy, deep purple. In contrast, the cauldron LaF and Perry were sharing was a pleasant pink, and it smelled faintly of rosemary.

Rather uselessly, Davie Pearce was scowling at his worn-out textbook beside her, shaking his head.

Laura had been distracted through all of her classes that morning, her head still on the pitch, but potions had never been particularly intriguing. This was not be the first time she had required a rescue. There was one incident in particular, from first year, that LaFontaine was gracious enough to never bring up. Perry was less accommodating. When she was particularly frustrated—usually when LaFontaine was not around to balance them out—she would mutter _“snake eyes,”_ with biting ferocity and a sweeping flush of shame would rise on Laura’s chest.

LaFontaine eyed the side of the room, where Professor Slughorn was surveying the work of two Hufflepuff girls. Sighing with dramatic flair they had picked up from Perry, they measured out the remainder of their own beetle wings with precise movements and scraped them into Laura and Davie’s cauldron.

It began to sizzle. Laura winced, but LaFontaine’s lack of concern suggested that this was the correct response to the new ingredient.

There were so many reasons Laura hated this class.

“Stir three times counterclockwise, once clockwise. Do that _ten_ times, got it? And for Merlin’s sake, read the board.”

Laura nodded hurriedly. Davie was now frowning at the cauldron, as though confused at why it was now making noises. His eyes shifted back to the book.

“Thanks,” Laura muttered.

Professor Slughorn appeared, a jolly grin on his face. “LaFontaine and Perry, ah, what a beautiful brew! And is that… a hint of mint that I detect?”

“To counteract the bloating side-effect.”

“Oh, of course! Ingenious, ingenious… twenty points to Gryffindor, eh?”

He tilted his head to glance into Laura’s cauldron, grimaced, and ducked away without comment. Laura’s ears burnt crimson.

“You messed with the instructions again,” Perry commented. There was disapproval in her tone, though she clearly did not dare make any accusation—not when they had earned points for Gryffindor.

“Uh-huh,” LaF agreed. Laura caught their grin, and suppressed one of her own. It was not nice, after all, to taunt Perry when she was distressed.

“Dammit, Laura,” came the mutter, not two minutes later. LaFontaine steadied her hand again, and didn’t bother explaining as they plucked the knife from her grip and used the blade to crush the juice out of the cranberries before tipping the liquid into the cauldron.

The color it turned was closer to maroon than pink, but it was progress. And the goopy-ness had gone, which had to be a good sign. There were potions that were  _supposed_  to be goopy, but LaFontaine’s own cauldron was decidedly smooth and glossy, its color a dark brown reminiscent of melted chocolate.

Perry’s lips were very thin, and very pale. Her brow was knit into one long line. She said nothing, but the whole of her posture was complaining _‘Laura will learn nothing if you keep helping her, LaFontaine.’_

Laura felt a swelling desire in her chest. It was an inward, crushing sensation, and not unfamiliar despite its unpleasantness.

If only she were good at something, the way Perry’s wand worked flawlessly through her Charms lessons and LaF intuitively knew how to handle every ingredient in Potions. It seemed like every class was a struggle, like she was re-reading every set of instructions three times before she even got close to the results she wanted.

The only time she really felt free, or talented, was when she was up in the Quidditch Pitch, and she did not need Perry’s reminders to know that Quidditch did not count as a real skill. She would never be good enough to earn a spot on her beloved Holyhead Harpies, and what was the point of flying well if she wasn’t the best?

Still, she had only let in three Quaffles from Slytherin, during the last match.

It was the Ravenclaw misses that got to her, from the first game of the season. Slytherin had been an easy win. Johnson had snatched up the Snitch in less than one hour. Ravenclaw, on the other hand, had stretched their game out nearly four hours. The stands had half-emptied, by the time it was over. They had been behind by twenty points when Johnson nicked the Snitch out from underneath Jenna Martin’s nose.

Laura had let in eighty whole points, while the Snitch was in hiding. Gryffindor had only scored sixty in the same timeframe. She replayed those points in her head endlessly, in the weeks after the game. She was still replaying them—sometimes in her sleep, wondering how she could have timed her moves better, how she could have anticipated Huxley’s throws…

Because it was Huxley, undeniably, who was the real star of the show. Without their Captain, Ravenclaw was a sinking ship.

And the anchor was one Carmilla Karnstein.

Laura would give anything to win on Saturday, if it only meant keeping the Quidditch Cup out of the hands of that miserable girl.

* * *

‘HOLLIS IS A KEEPER’ glittered the shining banner that hung from the front of the Gryffindor stands. An entirely-too-proud-of-himself Sirius Black had put the finishing touches on it the night before in the common room. He wolf-whistled, as Laura shot past on her way to the hoops.

As she took up her position, squinting to watch the play at the other end of the field—Danny was carrying out one of her newest maneuvers, flanked by her fellow Chasers—she caught sight of the banner as it changed colors, displaying ‘HUFFLEFART’ in block letters.

Laura couldn’t help it. She laughed.

And then three canary yellow blurs were streaking towards her, and the stands became much less interesting. She squared up, adjusted her grip on her broom handle, and let her instincts take over.

She caught the Quaffle with ease and lobbed it straight into the waiting hands of Danny, who shot past and arched her way across the field.

The first goal was hers, sailing smoothly through the center hoop after Turkwater fell for her right feint.

_Classic Lawrence._

The Hufflepuff Keeper was far from inept, though. He dodged every bludger that the Gryffindor Beaters launched his way—and saved several of the Quaffles at the same time. It was a testament to just how good Danny was—and how hard she pushed the team—that Gryffindor was up 40-0 when the first hour mark chirped on Laura’s watch.

_Just thirty more points,_ Laura was thinking, when the crowd roared and all eyes spun to find the Seekers. Johnson was rocketing on the heels of Wilson Kirsch, and, though Laura could not make out the Snitch, she knew it must be there, just beyond the tips of Kirsch’s outstretched fingers.

She did the math without thinking about it, having run every possible scenario over and over in her head the night before.

If Hufflepuff won right now, they would claim second. And Gryffindor, having not yet made ninety… would fall behind even the dreadful Slytherin. They would be making history, too. Gryffindor had not come in last in nearly fifty years—or so Danny kept telling them.

“HOLLIS!” Danny roared, as the Quaffle soared past her and through the left goalpost. She dove to reclaim it, hearing the game commentary in the distant background as she lobbed the ball back to one of the players in crimson. She barely noticed which of her teammates it was.

_“Hufflepuff sneaks one by Hollis—that’s a first for this game. And the Seekers are back at it—for a moment there it looked like the Snitch pulled a Houdini, but this time it’s Johnson in the lead. They’re coming up around the Hufflepuff side of the pitch… Oh! That was a low blow! Turkwater’s gonna be nursing that tomorrow. That’s what happens when you take your eye off the Bludger, folks…”_

She searched the pitch for the Seekers, catching sight of the stands just as the banner was being magically wiped clean of its newest image—a profane visage of a badger and an eagle enjoying one another’s company. Professor McGonagall seemed to be lecturing the three second years, who were no doubt completely un-apologetic for their behavior. If she were closer, Laura did not doubt she’d see three sneaky grins on their ducked faces.

A moment later, McGonagall was leaning out towards the pitch, shouting enthusiastically, reprimands forgotten. The Seekers whirred past, Johnson barely ahead of Kirsch.

Laura straightened up just in time to throw out an arm and block the Quaffle that soared out of nowhere. It plummeted, and Danny swept past underneath her to claim it.

_Get your head in the game, Hollis,_ Laura urged herself, giving her head a little shake. One of Danny’s biggest training points was her emphasis that they each play their own game.

_“I don’t care what the seekers are doing, Hollis, all you need to care about is that Quaffle!”_

She ducked a particularly agitated Bludger, dodging around the hoops as it gave momentary chase, boomeranging its way back into the main pitch. Pearce batted it away, shooting her a thumbs-up.

_“What’s this? Johnson appears to be taunting the Hufflepuff Seeker. It doesn’t look like there is a Snitch after all, and Kirsch barely saves himself from a face-plant on the field! And GOAL for Gryffindor! Potter puts a neat one away. Turkwater seems to be favoring his left after that Bludger—which really should have been a foul, come to think of it—and the Gryffindors are certainly taking advantage… Quaffle goes back to Gryffindor after yet another tricky Bludger from Carter… looks like Lawrence is going to try for another—YES! Back-to-back for Gryffindor, and Hollis might as well take a nap, for all the attention she’s getting.”_

The scoreboard read 60-10.

Spurred on by the humiliation, all three Hufflepuff Chasers surged down the pitch towards her, the Quaffle flying between them in perfect synchronization. The Gryffindors were far behind—Pearce was chasing one of the Bludgers in an attempt to launch it down and interrupt the play—but the timing was off.

Laura dove, her fingertips brushing the Quaffle as it slammed off the rim and cut its way through the hoop.

She cursed as she chased it downwards, barely saving it from hitting the ground. Copeland circled her, giving her a nod of encouragement as she accepted the Quaffle and headed back towards the Hufflepuff goal—keeping low to the ground.

The Hufflepuff Chasers soared overhead like vultures, and Laura watched their progress as she rose back to her place in front of the center Gryffindor hoop.

Two goals, she thought bitterly. And they still needed another score of their own if they had a hope of pulling through for the Cup.

Merlin, she needed this. She was going to fail potions for sure… she needed _something_ good…

Her gaze sought out the stands again, resting upon the distant forms that she knew to be Perry and LaFontaine. They were seated side-by-side, decked out in full Gryffindor gear. Laura grinned, knowing that Perry had not come to such an attire choice on her own. LaF had probably paid heavily in promises to spend afternoons in the library.

She appreciated the support.

Her focus swung down the stands, finding the sea of blue and silver that was Ravenclaw House. Many of them were sporting Hufflepuff yellow on top of their own House colors. She didn’t have the time to seek out Carmilla, but she knew that the other girl would no doubt be wearing some sort of shit-eating grin, wearing her traditional blue streaks across her face.

For someone so useless at the sport, she had a lot of pride in her team. Maybe she was just exceptionally grateful that they had let her on—perhaps her pureblood parents had bribed the team to get her a spot. Laura couldn’t see how else she deserved to be allowed to play.

The rest of Ravenclaw must be utterly dreadful.

_When Huxley graduates next year…_ she thought eagerly, that will be the end of them.

_“Lawrence comes up with another goal! That’s excellent form from an excellent form, if I say so myself… and if I’m not mistaken, that puts Gryffindor tied with Slytherin for the bottom of the Cup bracket. Now, all they need is one more—”_

Laura did not hear the rest of JP Armitage’s commentary. Johnson had dove abruptly towards the ground, and Kirsch was pursuing—if this wasn’t a red-herring, then the game was within inches of Gryffindor’s grasp, and the Cup along with it—and then Kirsch pulled up abruptly, swerving as though he had been struck by something, though there were no Bludgers in sight…

And he was holding a hand up. Laura was too far away to be sure that she saw the flash of gold in his glove. There was no way… but Johnson pulled out of his dive empty-handed, turning with his mouth hanging open, and Laura’s heart was already in her throat, her gut twisting.

Danny had already landed, throwing aside her broom. Laura knew she was cursing.

Tied for last, Laura thought painfully, was the same thing as last.


	3. The Important Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang starts their Fourth Year at Hogwarts, well-aware that things outside the castle walls are turning very dark, indeed.

_Fall of 1973 (Fourth Year)_

“Who’s that, honey?”

Laura turned, following her Dad’s gaze. She scowled, scuffing her trainer on the platform concrete in agitation.

“No one, Dad.”

It was not no one. It was Carmilla Karnstein, and she was standing, alone, about five meters away, sipping her coffee with a self-satisfied grin.

“Well, she was just sizing you up,” he muttered, an eyebrow raised pointedly.

“Oh god, Dad, _no_ ,” Laura declared firmly. “Just… _no_.”

“Okay, okay. She looks like she’s in your year, and she’s, y’know, she seems—”

“Don’t finish that sentence. Please.”

He fell silent. Laura checked her watch. Quarter to eleven. The train should be there any moment. Her trunk sat heavily at her side, one hand resting on it possessively. Her new broom was strapped to the side, and she had asked the store-witch to put a series of protective charms on it… but that did not stop her from worrying.

It was a Cleansweep, the second-to-newest model, and it had been dreadfully expensive. She was still thanking her Dad up-and-down for insisting upon purchasing it as a late birthday present. He had argued that he had been planning on getting her one for quite some time, and lamented frequently that he did not get the chance to see her play.

She thought of the last game against Hufflepuff, and couldn’t help but be grateful that parents were not regularly invited to Hogwarts grounds. It was bad enough reliving the event in her head. She couldn’t imagine if she had been forced to spend the summer with an actual witness to her failure.

He had said _“Aw, sorry, kiddo,”_ when she shrugged and told him that they had only pulled off a last-minute tie for third place. She had not felt like expanding further on the semantics of Quidditch, and he had seemed to sense this, not bringing up the topic until they were standing in Diagon Alley and he was waving her through the doors to the 2 nd Hand Broom Shop… looking like a kid, himself, all the while.

Dad was always excited about the wizarding world—he didn’t need a special occasion or purchase to make his face light up when she talked about magic, and witnessing it first hand in the streets of wizarding London took years off of the wrinkles on his face.

 _“Can you do that?”_ he would ask, pointing zealously to a witch or wizard that was performing some standard spell in the streets. It was usually as simple as sweeping up or setting out wares, and she would just smile, promising that she would show him everything when she came of age and could do magic freely at home.

She was going to charm the dishes to wash themselves, and the clothing to put itself neatly away in their closets. He would never need to sweep another floor or bleach out the old claw-foot tub in their lone bathroom. The oven would self-clean, and set its own alarms so that he never ate another burnt roast.

Laura was going give her single father some well-deserved rest.

 _“You’re going to get some fancy, magical job after you graduate,”_ he would argue, when she would list off these sorts of plans.

Sometimes, Laura feared the truth of his words. Days like today, though, when she was preparing to say goodbye for another long year away from him at Hogwarts, she swore to herself she would never let such a thing happen—even if she led the rest of her life as a Muggle and only ever did magic at home.

Some things were more important than the wizarding world. And she would give anything to preserve what little of that she had left.

“You’re sure you have everything you need?” he asked. The train whistle sounded distantly. _Nearly time_.

“Yup,” she assured him. He had already asked the question five times, between the loading of the car and their arrival at King’s Cross. “I’ll write you all the time. Every week,” she promised, as the train puffed its way onto the platform, shrouding them with white smoke.

He kissed the top of her head. “You better, or Cogs will come find me on his own. You know I’m his real favorite.”

She laughed, falling easily into his shoulder for a sideways hug. He squeezed her to him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

The tiny screech owl hooted resolutely in his cage. He knew his name better than any dog. Sometimes she was certain he understood everything they were saying, and judging in silence. His golden eyes had a lofty, all-knowing gleam to them that she found endearing if not slightly unnerving.

“Well, he’s a smart owl,” she said softly.

She loaded her trunk into the luggage compartment, and then hopped free for one last, long, embrace.

“Every week,” he said, pointing a finger at her as she rested one foot on the platform and the other on the first step. Her fingers tightened on the railing.

“Every single one,” she insisted. “I’ll tell you all about practice—Danny will be over the moon when she sees my new Cleansweep.”

A shoulder rammed into hers. She stumbled, her smile faltering.

“Better point him back towards the barrier,” Carmilla snipped, thin eyebrows raised haughtily. “Wouldn’t want a _Muggle_ getting lost where he doesn’t belong.”

Laura ground her teeth, but spun back to give a final wave and a forced smile as the train began to shift, the whistle sounding. Dad waved back obliviously. His pale eyes were shiny.

Carmilla was already gone, when she turned down the row of compartments. The narrow aisle was filled with students in their Muggle clothing, laughing and greeting one another. Laura slipped past a trembling group of tiny first years— _was I ever really that small and helpless?—_ and peered into each compartment in turn, searching for familiar faces.

She had not run into LaF or Perry on the platform, which was unusual.

“Hollis!” Danny Lawrence towered over her, beaming. The seventh year pulled her in for a hug.

“Oh my god, Danny!” Laura exclaimed, catching sight of a shiny new badge on her robes. “You’re Head Girl?”

Danny puffed out her chest proudly. “Yes! _And_ my parents bought me a Cleansweep ’75 to celebrate! We’re going to _dust_ those bloody Ravenclaws.”

Laura grinned, pushing aside the sinking sensation in her chest. She did not mention her Cleansweep ’69.

“We’re going to practice harder than _ever_ this year. I need everyone at their best—you included. I can’t promise positions to anyone, even Gryffindor veterans. I’ve got a whole new routine planned, and tryouts are going to be intense this time around.” She gave Laura a hard look. “I’m only giving you a heads-up because I think you deserve the most consideration—but that doesn’t mean I won’t cut you if Gryffindor stands a better chance with someone else. Fair warning.”

“I’ll be ready,” Laura promised, suppressing a chuckle. “Perry!” she called, leaning around Danny as she caught sight of the other ginger poking her head out of an open compartment door.

With a quick _see ya later,_ Danny headed past her, drifting towards the front of the train, and Laura embraced Perry first, and then LaF when they, too, emerged from the compartment.

“Found an empty one,” LaF said, prodding a thumb over their shoulder.

“I love your hair.” LaF had trimmed it again—it was buzzed neatly on the side, and the swoosh they had put into the top was extra dramatic, with a little curl at the end. LaF gave it a little toss, shrugging abashedly.

“How was your summer?” Perry pushed politely, as they settled into their seats. Outside, London had faded away, and they were rattling through green fields and shrubbery. LaFontaine tugged the window open, and the mixed scent of recently cut grass and acrid train smoke filtered in on the sharp breeze.

“Pretty solid. Dad bought me my own broomstick!”

“No _way!”_ LaF cried, eyes lighting up. “What model?”

“Cleansweep ’69. I haven’t even had a chance to try it out, yet. We just went to Diagon Alley yesterday. I’m _dying_ to get on the pitch. And, actually…” she raised a hopeful eyebrow and dropped her voice. “I might try to sneak down after the Start-of-Term Feast.”

 _“Sweet._ I’ll be your lookout, if you let me have a go!”

“Uh, _of course!”_

Perry made a little sound in the back of her throat. “You two are going to start off the term with detentions—that’s not a great way to begin Fourth Year, you know. This is the time when our studies are starting to become very serious. We have O.W.L.s next year.”

“She’s been like this all summer,” LaF informed Laura, shaking their head. “Can’t stop talking about the damn O.W.L.s. You’d think they were next month, not two years from now.”

“It’s not two years,” Perry huffed. “It’s twenty months.”

Laura bit her lip to hide her smile. “Yes, sorry, Per, that’s definitely _much_ sooner.”

“Be sarcastic all you want, Laura Hollis,” Perry sniffed. “Some of us will be working at the Ministry when we graduate—others will be cleaning the stands after Quidditch matches.”

“Such high hopes for us,” LaF piped up. “I thought I was going to be living in your basement—wasn’t that what you said second year, when I was refusing to study for the Defense exam with you?”

“I’ve concluded that I won’t have the space. Economically, it makes sense to get a small flat in London and begin building savings early. Supporting you simply won’t be in the cards, LaFontaine.”

“I’m crushed.”

“Now, hold on, Perry,” Laura interjected. “After you become Minister for Magic, _then_ you’ll let us live in the basement of your mansion, right?”

Perry glared. “Let us hope things do not come to that.”

“What about you, Laura?” LaF tried, “When you’re a big, famous Quidditch star _you’ll_ let me sleep on your couch, right?”

Laura felt a tug in her chest. She pushed it aside. “Of course, LaF.”

Perry rolled her eyes.

Outside the compartment, there was a rather loud crash. The three of them jumped in their seats. Perry pulled open the door to peer out.

“No need to panic,” James Potter professed. His hair was askew, half his face covered in soot. He was grinning from ear-to-ear. “Just a little incident. The tiniest of things. Go back to your regularly scheduled programming.”

Perry tugged the door shut with a cluck of her tongue.

“When I’m a Prefect…” she muttered under her breath.

“Eh, Snape probably deserves whatever it is,” LaF shrugged. They were reading a copy of the Daily Prophet, now, shoulder leaning against the window and feet up on the seat beside them. The headline read ‘CHAOS IN LIVERPOOL’ over a large, moving image of running figures and flashing spells.

Laura opened her mouth, a question forming as her brows drew together, but Perry spoke first.

“And how do you know it was Snape, hm?”

“Because it’s _always_ Snape, when it comes to those four.”

“And you don’t think four-on-one is a bit unfair?”

“He holds his own. Besides, I caught him testing out some nasty spell down by the lake last spring. That kid is into some dark stuff.”

“That’s not something to joke about, LaFontaine,” Perry warned, her tone suddenly serious. “Just look at what you’re reading.”

“What happened in Liverpool?” Laura cut in eagerly. She couldn’t make out the words below the headline, and LaF kept shifting the paper as the train bumped along.

LaFontaine opened their mouth to reply, lowering the paper, but a cry of “Trolley!” came from the aisle. Their eyes lighting up, they hopped to their feet and extracted several sickles from their pockets with some difficulty. A minute later they dumped their haul on the open seats, gesturing for the others to help themselves as they tore open a chocolate frog box.

“Liverpool?” Laura pushed.

Perry glanced at the compartment door, and then slid her wand from her pocket, muttering a spell under her breath. There was a faint click. She turned back to Laura seriously, taking a breath.

“Have you not been getting the paper?”

Laura shook her head.

“Giants,” Perry said stiffly. “It was an attack by… by giants.”

Laura’s mouth fell open. “Giants? In _Liverpool?_ I thought—I thought they lived in the mountains!”

“They’ve come out of hiding,” LaF said, their expression grim. _“He’s_ brought them out.”

Laura did not have to ask who _he_ was. She frowned, letting her gaze shift out the window. The sun was cutting down through the clouds. They were somewhere in the north of England, probably just past Newcastle, and she imagined they would be crossing into Scotland, soon. The air leeching through the cracked window had turned cool and lost its welcome.

She stood and fought with the latch for a long moment, none of them speaking. Finally, the glass relented and slid upwards, locking back into place. With the wind cut off, the silence was obvious and stifling.

“I shouldn’t have let my dad come with me to the station,” she murmured, still standing in the narrow space between the seats. She didn’t turn from the window.

The sun had disappeared behind a tall cropping of trees.

“Laura—”

“No,” she cut LaF off, shaking her head. “It’s not safe. I should have just put my savings into a _Prophet_ subscription… then I’d have known.”

“We should have written you,” Perry said. “I should have thought to.”

“You thought I knew,” Laura shrugged. She couldn’t meet either of their gazes, though she felt them staring at her, and knew they were wearing identical expressions of concern. She took a steadying breath, focusing on her hands, resting in her lap. “What else?” she asked. “It can’t just be that—other things have been happening, too, haven’t they?”

Fresh silence followed her question. It was LaFontaine who finally cleared their throat to answer.

“Well… yes,” they said, their voice uncharacteristically small. “A—a family of muggles was killed in their house in July. The muggle papers painted it as a gas leak.”

Laura’s head lifted, eyes going wide and darting between her friends. “Were they related to anyone magical?”

Perry bit her lip, giving her head a little shake. “It was… his followers that did it. The _Death Eaters_ , they’re calling themselves. As far as anyone can tell, there wasn’t even a motive. Just… random killing.” She cleared her throat. “It’s horrible.”

Laura pictured her father, making the solo journey back to their cottage on the coast. _Random_ , she thought, a shiver creeping up her spine.

“We’ll be okay at Hogwarts,” Perry urged, trying to put some pep in her voice. “It’s the safest place in the country.”

Dimly, Laura managed a nod. It wasn’t _herself_ she was worried about.

She replayed Carmilla’s words in her head: _wouldn’t want a Muggle getting lost where he doesn’t belong._

If only parents _could_ visit Hogwarts, she thought regretfully. She’d let her father watch every last miserable Quidditch defeat, if only it meant keeping him safe.

///

The first match of the season was Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw, on the first Saturday of November. Laura wore her Gryffindor scarf to combat the wind, trekking down to the pitch between Perry and LaFontaine.

“I don’t know who I want to lose more,” she muttered.

LaFontaine scoffed. “Oh, please. It’s Ravenclaw. You want to see them _routed_. Don’t even deny it.”

Laura laughed. “Alright, true. But I’m still bitter about Hufflepuff—don’t disregard that.”

“Well, we’ll just hope for a nice quick match. The less points they earn overall, the better.”

“True.”

Perry tugged her scarf tighter around her neck. “Quick is better,” she agreed, as they filed one after the other into the narrow staircase up to their seats.

“Pity Karnstein made the team, again,” LaFontaine commented, when the teams flowed out of the changing rooms and onto the field.

“Nah,” Laura said, sniffing. “It just means the rest of the House must have been _truly_ dreadful.”

LaFontaine snorted loudly. Down on the ground, the Captains were shaking hands. Madame Hooch tossed the Quaffle into the air.

Laura felt the vicarious high go through her, as the brooms shot up into the air. She watched attentively as the Keepers looped up into their places, mentally critiquing their form and calculating how they would move when the opposing Chasers came after them.

The new Hufflepuff Keeper looked positively terrified, and she smirked openly as he let an easy shot through. She knew Danny, wherever she was watching from, would already be coming up with plays. She was big on revenge.

Carmilla had the Quaffle, and she ducked a Bludger on her way up the pitch.

Laura cheered when Teddy Jordan knocked into her and she lost her grip. Hufflepuff took the Quaffle back up for another easy goal.

“Shame the Bludger missed her,” LaF muttered.

“There’s still plenty of time,” Laura declared.

Perry glared at them. “Honestly, you two. I know she’s… terrible. But this sport isn’t _that_ important.”

“This isn’t about the _sport_ ,” LaF argued hotly, “It’s about principle. You remember what Karnstein said to Laura on the train. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was thinking about _joining up_. She’d be just the type, even if she’s not a Slytherin…”

“LaFontaine!” Perry snapped, her eyes flashing dangerously. Her voice was a hiss when she continued: “Don’t say things like that!”

“It’s true,” LaF muttered.

Laura’s stomach churned. It was strange to think that LaF might not be wrong. Had Carmilla not just last week jinxed her in the corridor, hissing _filthy mudblood_ as she strutted past? Had she not purposefully trod on Laura’s already battered Charms textbook, breaking the spine?

She hadn’t exactly been alone for that encounter, either. Rosier and Avery had been there, right at her side.

Laura found Carmilla again, streaking down the pitch in her blue and silver robes, dark hair streaming out behind her. She was a horrible person, yes, but was she capable of torture… or murder? No, Laura couldn’t find it in herself to think such terrible things of any of her classmates—not even the darkest of them.

Still, the thought tugged at her, and she struggled to pay attention as the match progressed. She wondered if Carmilla would be _happy_ if Voldemort succeeded, if the world were ruled by dark wizards and muggles were forced to bow to their will. Would Carmilla find that fitting? Would she be pleased if Laura were captured and tortured like the muggleborn Auror that had been found washed up on the beach not two weeks prior?

She bit down the bile in her throat to cheer as the Seekers dove into hot pursuit, chasing the seemingly invisible Snitch through the center of play. The Quaffle tumbled to the ground.

Laura bit back her disappointment as the Ravenclaw Seeker came up triumphant, the little golden ball clutched in her glove. She pushed aside her dark thoughts, let the present take up her focus. Gryffindor’s first game was only weeks away. That was what she should care about right now.

There was no use driving herself crazy with fears of a future that might not even happen.

///

“Ugh, you can’t be serious,” LaFontaine groaned. Laura met their stare with determination, quill poised above the parchment. She made no move to stand up.

“Just because Laura has decided to be productive does not mean you have to be,” Perry noted smugly. “Though it would certainly be in your best interest.”

“I _hate_ when I’m outnumbered,” LaF muttered, dropping down into one of the comfy chairs by the fire. “And I feel _tricked_. We were supposed to go down to the pitch, Laura!”

She sighed. “Yes. But… I don’t know. This seemed more important.”

Laura was surprised Perry’s neck didn’t crack from the speed with which her head shot up. She darted her gaze between Laura and LaFontaine, mouth open. “Did she just say that? Did I hear that correctly?”

“Of all our classes… this one is the most important,” Laura said. Her voice was quiet, uncertain as she forced the words out. “We might actually… _need_ this stuff.”

Perry was silent, all traces of gloating washed out in the wake of Laura’s words. LaFontaine pulled out her books without another complaint, unrolling a scroll of parchment.

Laura re-read the paragraph on shielding techniques, and then cleared her throat. “I’d like to learn how to do the nonverbal version,” she voiced, trying to put confidence into her tone. She glanced up at Perry, who’s eyebrows lifted.

“That’s sixth year material,” she pointed out.

“Are you saying I’m not capable?”

Perry’s face reddened. “Of course not! I’m just… _surprised_ , Laura. Here,” she turned the textbook to read the passage Laura had been musing over. She gave a prim nod. “This could be an _excellent_ project. I’ve been dying to do some more advanced work… oh, I’m so excited that you’re taking an interest!”

Laura forced a smile, accepting Perry’s attempt to lighten the mood. The ginger was shoving her things into a bag, though, and Laura was about to ask what on earth she was doing when the other girl motioned impatiently for her to hurry up.

“Come on, then. This calls for hands-on, and there’s not enough space, here. We’ll find an empty classroom.”

LaFontaine eyed her, and then Laura. “I’m sorry. Did she just suggest going out after hours?”

Perry rolled her eyes. “This is a worthy cause. Now move, before I change my mind.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said LaF, grinning widely.

The empty classroom that Perry shuffled them into did not seem random, nor did the way she pulled several books down from the shelves and set them out on the professor’s desk, flipping through them and muttering to herself.

“I feel like she’s just dragged us into her lair,” LaF muttered, shooting a pointed look at Laura. “I blame you for this.”

“So, uh, Perry? Where do we start?” Laura asked, toying anxiously with her hair.

“Well, I’ve never actually performed a nonverbal spell, myself, you know. We’re all going to be learning, here, together.”

“She is way too happy about that,” LaFontaine hissed, their nose scrunched up.

“I can hear you, LaFontaine,” Perry said breezily. She murmured a spell under her breath, shifting the furniture aside to clear space at the front of the room. “We’ll have to be quiet, of course, so let’s not try anything too serious. I think a verbal disarming spell will work best as the attack. Anything physical and we’re liable to have Peeves come down on us… or Filch.”

“Jeez, Per, how often do you do this?” LaF asked.

“If you weren’t busy pulling all-nighters all the time trying to keep up, perhaps you’d know a bit more of what I do in my free time,” Perry intoned. “Now, Laura, you wanted my help… let’s get started. Come on, stand over here.”

Laura made a face, pacing over to stand where Perry indicated. The other girl padded across the room and spun on her heel, raising her wand in front of her face in traditional dueling stance. Swallowing, Laura mimicked her.

“Y’know, I’m not sure how I feel about this,” she started to say. Perry was already slashing forward with her wand, though. Laura jumped, but felt nothing.

“What..?” she started to say.

Perry shrugged. “Well, I thought _I’d_ give nonverbal a go… seems I’ll need plenty of practice, too. No matter. We can trade off as we go.” She squared up again, and this time Laura was ready, facing her with the same determination she would an oncoming Chaser.

 _“Expelliarmus!”_ the ginger declared sharply, her curls flying as she threw her arm forward.

 _Protego!_ Laura thought, throwing her shoulder to the side as she slashed her wand through the space before her. It jerked from her grasp, burning her fingers as it spun end over end across the classroom. Perry reached up to catch it, and missed. It clattered into the wall, and LaFontaine gave a snort.

They were watching from a spot slumped against one of the empty desks, their arms crossed over their chest.

Perry’s heels clicked as she collected it, returning it to its proper owner. It hummed in Laura’s grasp, and she thought a silent apology at it.

“Alright, again,” Perry said. She raised an eyebrow, waiting as Laura put herself into a defensive stance.

It took three more run-throughs before LaFontaine groaned loudly and stormed in between the pair.

“Seriously, you guys, you’ll get nowhere like this. Sometimes you’re so thick-headed…” They snatched up the books, and set one on each desk—three in total. Then they seized Laura’s shoulders and spun her to face the first desk, slipped around to direct Perry at the second, and faced the third themself. “Lift the book. Quiet enough, Per?”

Perry grumbled, but did not argue. Laura smirked. Perry might be the most scholarly of the three, but LaF had always had a better grasp of the practical.

Laura pointed her wand, narrowed her eyes, and thought _Wingardium Leviosa!_ as she gave her wand an expert swish and flick.

The spell was a breeze, normally. It was one of the only ones that she had mastered without excessive practice—something she had previously been quite proud of.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, with identical results. Beside her, Perry’s face was slowly turning a dark shade of red, her lips pursed and thin. LaFontaine was working slowly, taking long pauses between attempts, but looked utterly unfazed as their book stared blankly back at them from its perch on the edge of the desk.

Laura tried harder, saying the words with her tongue, forcing her lips to stay sealed. _Fly, dammit_.

And then she took a breath, opened her mouth, and formed the words without pushing them from her throat. The book shifted—it was the tiniest fraction, but it was enough that she immediately had the attention of the room.

“Laura!” Perry cried, and there was a tinge of jealousy in her voice.

“I mouthed it.”

Perry was unmoving. “That’s still nonverbal!” she insisted. “You didn’t whisper it? Even just a little?”

Laura shook her head, turned back to the book, and extended her wand. She formed the words again, swished her wand—and there was nothing.

The tension in Perry’s shoulders fell.

Somewhere down the corridor, a door creaked. All three froze in place.

“You know, I think we’re good for the night,” LaFontaine hissed.

“Uh-huh. Let’s move.”

They slunk back up to the tower, keeping to the shadows. The Fat Lady was disapproving, when they stood before her, but merely _harrumphed_ when they gave the password, swinging open to reveal the porthole.

“I could get used to this,” LaFontaine said, as they settled down into their four poster. “Lola Perry, breaking the rules…”

“There will be no _getting used to this_ ,” Perry corrected firmly. “But there are some things… that are more important than the rules.” She glanced towards Laura as she spoke the words, and Laura dipped her head, fiddling with the hem of her robes.

“So, you’re saying we’ll do this again, though, right?” LaF pushed.

“Yes. Now, don’t gloat. It’s not becoming.”

“I would never,” LaF grinned. They tucked themself into their bed, sighing contentedly. Laura did the same, snuffing out the lights and plunging the room into darkness.

“Perry,” Laura said softly. “LaF?”

“Yes?” came the dual response.

She swallowed. “You guys are really good friends”


	4. A Very Quidditch Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Christmas at Hogwarts, and Laura isn't the only one staying for the Holidays.

_Christmas, 1973 (Fourth Year)_

It was snowing on the Quidditch pitch. Laura shivered, barely able to feel the broom she was clutching. No one had come near the goalposts, and she had been hovering in place for nearly an hour with nothing to do. The boredom was starting to eat her alive.

“Can I at least do _laps_ , Danny?” she yelled.

If the Captain heard her, she was choosing to ignore the question. She was still yelling at the Chasers, pelting them with spare Quaffles as they tried to keep up.

“Is anyone going to try to _score?”_ Laura cried, and then let out an exaggerated groan, throwing back her head. _Enough is enough._ She leaned forward, dive-bombing into the center of their practice.

“Hey!” several shouts burst after her. Laura laughed, doing a barrel roll and coming up brightly at Danny’s side.

“C’mon,” she griped. “If you aren’t going to include me, I’m going back to the Tower. And look at poor Johnson! He’s been circling for _hours_. He’ll be growing icicles off his nose, soon.”

“Well he hasn’t found the Snitch, yet,” Danny said, as though it were the simplest concept in the world. She was scowling.

“It’s probably halfway to London! Listen, Danny, we’re all tired. It’s the night before the holidays… just let everyone enjoy their last night with their friends.”

“But the Hufflepuff match—”

“Isn’t until February. Jeez, you’re almost as bad as Perry,” she teased.

It was the wrong thing to say.

Danny’s expression turned stormy. She spun towards the ground, landing heavily. Laura glanced at the others, who had all paused, hovering in place with widened eyes. She dropped to the frozen pitch, catching up with Danny halfway to the changing rooms—which was quite a feat, considering the difference in their strides.

“Hey,” she said, reaching for the older girl’s arm. Danny jerked it from her grasp, but stopped, spinning to glare down at her. Laura ducked, suddenly abashed. “Danny, I didn’t mean that as an _insult—”_

“I know. That’s not why—I’m not mad at you,” Danny sighed. She ran a hand through her frizzed out hair. “This is my last year, Laura,” she said. “I’m leaving Hogwarts in June, and the world is at _war,_ even if the papers don’t dare say the word. I’m muggleborn—just like you. I have no idea what’s going to _happen_ to me. All I know is that… right now, all I can handle caring about is this damn Cup, okay?”

Laura stared, wide-eyed, and nodded.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay.”

The team changed quickly. No one spoke until after Danny had ducked out. On the way back to the castle, Pearce and Carter pummeled each other with snowballs, giggling with the flakes still caught in their hair and on their eyelashes.

Potter did not come along. His mates had been at the pitch during practice, goofing off in the stands like always, and she did not doubt that they were making use of the school’s spare brooms, now. Locks had never been a particularly large obstacle for the likes of Sirius Black.

“Hey, you’re alive!” LaFontaine cheered, when Laura hopped through the porthole on her teammates’ heels. She grinned, throwing herself into the nearest open armchair.

“When Danny came through a few minutes ago, we got worried,” Perry admitted. “She looked… upset.”

Well, that was an understatement. But Laura didn’t feel like sharing. She shrugged. “She’s just worried about our progress. What did you guys do, today?”

“Studied,” LaFontaine muttered bitterly, casting a dark look at Perry. “A _lot_.”

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I sat on a broomstick in the snow for three hours. Studying sounds nice.”

LaF tipped their head in acknowledgment. “You’ve got me there.”

“Anyways, you guys must have packed, right? You’re leaving first thing in the morning.”

“Perr’s been packed for a week. I threw some stuff together this morning. But, Laura—”

“You guys are going to have a great break,” Laura cut them off forcibly.

“Laura,” Perry tried.

“No.”

“But—”

 _“No_.”

They sat in silence, Laura’s jaw set and a nerve pulsing in her throat. There was a challenge in the way she arched her eyebrow.

“Well,” Perry sighed, finally. “You’ll practice nonverbal spells even without us, right?”

The corner of Laura’s lip twitched up in a smile of relief. “Of course. I’m looking forward to it.”

“We’ll write,” LaF added eagerly. “And your present is sitting on my bed.”

“Oh, yes, mine is on the nightstand!” Perry jumped in. “It’s got your name on it; the house-elves might know to put it with your other presents, but if they don’t, make sure you open it, alright? And on Christmas morning—not before. It’s no fun if you cheat.”

Laura laughed. “I’ll wait. Promise.”

“Good.”

The silence descended again, heavier this time.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Perry declared finally, seizing Laura and jerking her to her feet for a crushing hug. “We’ll miss you. Both of us. Even if LaFontaine won’t admit it.”

“Thanks, Perry… I’ll miss you guys, too.”

LaF gave her a bashful nod from over Perry’s shoulder, and Laura smiled back. They were family… and they were spending the holidays apart.

But, it was better, this way. For all of them.

* * *

Breakfast was quiet and small, with no fanfare—Christmas was still three days away. With the castle mostly empty, the usual studying and relaxation of a Saturday were muted. The enchanted mistletoe that hung in every archway sang off-tune carols as she passed, which seemed to chase her in echoes on her way down to the grounds.

The snow from yesterday had settled in a thick dusting, painting the Forbidden Forest like a winter wonderland. The lake was frozen over, marked with the tracks of ice skates from yesterday’s celebrations. Laura wondered, as she cut past it, what the giant squid did, during the winter months. Did it hibernate? Or was it just particularly impervious to the chill?

She didn’t bother changing, simply shouldering her broom and padding out onto the pitch. Her boots crunched, leaving deep tracks in her wake.

She thought about what Danny had said. What _was_ going to happen to her, after she graduated? Danny wanted to be a Quidditch star—it was all Laura had ever heard her talk about. With the way things were going out there, though? Everyone talked about how Hogwarts was the safest place in Britain. But, after graduation, where was there to hide? Back to the muggle world, she supposed…

She froze, not even halfway across the field. A shadow had cut across her face, as she tipped her head back to look skyward. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one that had chosen today for a solo practice.

A lone figure was streaking across the pitch, a Quaffle tucked under her arm. She flung it through one of the hoops with ease, and then shot into a long dive to snatch it back up before it could hit the ground. As she circled back, low to the ground, she caught sight of Laura.

“Oh hell,” Carmilla Karnstein snapped. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Laura’s lip curled up into a sneer of pure, unfiltered dislike. “I could ask you the same thing. The way you play, I would never have thought you practiced a day in your life.”

She kicked off, shooting clear as the Quaffle flew at her face.

“You missed,” she commented airily. “Surprise, surprise.”

“Fuck off,” Carmilla snarled. She yanked back her sleeve and drew her wand.

Laura raised an eyebrow, and pulled her own out, too. A duel on the pitch—she shouldn’t have been surprised that it was coming to this.

“Are you going to curse me?” she dared. She wasn’t sure where the sudden rush of bravery was coming from, but there was something about seeing Karnstein leveling a wand at her that rose her blood pressure unhealthily. Her mouth rushed onwards without permission from her brain. “You don’t have any of your little Death Eater pals to back you up. That’s what they call themselves, right? Messing around with dark magic?”

Carmilla threw a curse, biting it out between her teeth so harshly that Laura could not make out the words. Whatever it was, it flared red. Laura threw up a shield, but the force of the attack still tossed her back. It was like being hit with a particularly bad gust during a stormy game. She clung to her broom, righting herself and flinging back a jinx of her own.

Carmilla dove out of the way, and this time it was a stunning spell she threw back. She didn’t catch Laura square—but she did singe the edge of her robes.

Laura swore. They had been expensive, and new—a rarity for her.

Fresh fury shot through her like a lightning bolt, crackling in her fingertips. She was shaking with rage. She aimed for the tail of the other girls robes, throwing a spell she had learned only weeks ago from LaFontaine. A trail of silvery blue fireballs, small but vicious, shot from her wand in an arc, homing in on their target even as she dodged. They hit home.

Carmilla spun, crashing into the snow and rolling to put out the flickering blue flames. When she righted herself, her face was pale and racked with emotion.

A horrible chill hit her with a force similar to the crash of Carmilla’s body into the snow, the shaking in her hands nearly unbearable.  

 _“Sectumsempra!”_ the other girl shrieked, her wand slashing through the air in long streaks.

Laura’s shield charm was not quite quick enough. She hit the ground hard, her broom thrown clear, and jerked her hand up to her cheek. The tips of her fingers came away slick with blood. Her mouth flew open, horror catching in her throat, but when she sat up she found herself alone. Carmilla’s slender figure was already small in the distance.

* * *

The cut did not heal, nor did it stop bleeding. Laura spent twenty minutes in the girls’ toilet before she gave in and set a course for the Hospital Wing.

Madame Pomfrey spent an hour on her, trying a collection of spells and magical concoctions, none of which seemed to fully work. She pushed Laura repeatedly on _how_ she had gotten the injury, but Laura had never considered herself a snitch. ‘An accident,’ she said, again and again.

From the set of her scowl, Madame Pomfrey was not buying it. 

Laura didn’t care, though. A part of her wondered what _would_ happen, if she gave Carmilla’s name—if Dumbledore called the other girl to his office and issued her a year’s worth of detention. What would Carmilla’s Death Eater buddies do to Laura, then?

She suspected she did not want to find out.

“You’ll have a scar,” Madame Pomfrey sighed, at long last. “If it starts bleeding again, I want you back here _immediately_.”

Laura nodded. She went straight to Gryffindor Tower, removed the bandages, and studied her face in the mirror.

The wound was not pretty. It ran along her cheekbone, angry and red, arching from her nose almost all the way to her ear. She wondered if it would be thinner, or at least paler, when it healed—and if it would be quite so obvious.

Laura had never considered herself particularly vain, nor pretty, but she couldn’t deny the weighty stone that had settled in her gut with Madame Pomfrey’s words.

‘Scar’ meant ‘permanent.’

A forever gift from none other than Karnstein. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing it for the rest of her life.

And, on a more concerning note, she suspected Carmilla had not just been looking to _nick_ her. She had been aiming for more than her cheek, with that spell.

“What the hell happened to you?” Davie Pearce asked, eyes going wide as she joined him in the common room that evening. The fire crackled merrily.

“Disagreement,” she shrugged, settling into her usual chair and cracking open her textbook to the section on nonverbal spells.

“Looks serious.”

“Eh. I’ll live.”

She had considered writing a letter to Perry and LaFontaine, to catch them up on the events of the morning. When she had taken out the parchment, though, she hadn’t been able to find the right words. _Hi, hope you’re having a nice holiday; Karnstein tried to kill me_ , just didn’t seem like the sort of thing one should put in a letter—especially if she didn’t want her friends rushing prematurely back to Hogwarts.

So, she said nothing, and followed Davie down to dinner in silence when the sun began to set outside the Tower windows.

Laura was not the kind of person that ever wanted to admit she was afraid, but there was something _safe_ about knowing the Fat Lady was guarding the entrance to the Tower… and that Carmilla did not have access.

She scanned the Great Hall quickly, as she came through the doors, and felt the tension drain from her shoulders as she confirmed that there was no head of long, raven hair amongst the tiny collection of students.

Laura piled her plate with cottage pie and green beans, shoveling down the food with gusto. She ignored the sidelong looks she earned for her new scar, settled into a Quidditch debate with Davie and Melanie, and had high spirits by the time she stood to make her exit.

Which was why she was taken so off-guard when a hand wrapped around her elbow and jerked her into the shadows of the main staircase.

“What the—”

“Shh!”

Laura blinked, and found herself face to face with Carmilla. Her expression was knitted with an odd, deep concentration. Laura jerked back.

“Stay still,” Carmilla snapped. Her wand was drawn, and Laura did not have time to react as the other girl pressed the tip to her cheek, tracing along the length of the gash as she muttered an incantation under her breath. It sounded almost like a song, rather than a spell, the words lilting smoothly off her tongue.

It took only a moment, and then the girl stepped back and out of her personal space. She tipped her head, as if studying her work, and gave the smallest of nods.

And then she was just… _gone_.

Laura stood there, numb, for a long moment. She lifted her hand to brush her cheek tentatively. The skin was smooth, unmarred, and cold to the touch.

She shivered.

* * *

 

Laura arrived at the Quidditch pitch early Sunday morning, before anyone had even emerged for breakfast. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find, but there was definitely _disappointment_ swirling through her—at least in part—when she recognized that, this time, she was truly alone.

Laura had a lot of questions.

She took to the sky smoothly, doing laps and zig-zagging through the hoops until she was dizzy.

There was still no sign of Carmilla. Laura laid claim to several of the school’s Quaffles, bewitching them to fly at the goal posts.

It wasn’t the same as working with another player, but it was good enough, for lonely mornings like this one. Mostly, it was the exercise of the thing—dodging back and forth and feeling the hard weight of the Quaffle in her grasp—that made the practice effective. Familiarity built muscle memory. It made Quidditch feel _natural_ , when she was waiting for an opponent with the whole of the school roaring below.

The sun was up, and her stomach was beginning to give its first growls of protest, when Laura saw her. She approached slowly, trailing her way down from the school, but Laura recognized her easily, even from a distance.

Who else, besides herself, would be drifting out to the pitch on a Sunday morning during school break, after all?

Carmilla disappeared into the changing rooms, and emerged a moment later clutching a school broom. Laura wondered vaguely, frowning down from where she was doing lazy circles around the pitch, why she had never noticed that Carmilla borrowed school brooms, rather than using her own.

Surely she could afford the latest model—she was not the least bit shy about her pureblooded status.

Laura’s hand shifted to hover over the sleeve where her wand was tucked, swallowing nervously as the other girl rose steadily to meet her.

Carmilla did not reach for her wand, though, keeping both hands gripped firmly on the handle of the ancient Shooting Star. Her face was pale, her expression blank. Laura watched her stare dart from her eyes to her cheek, and then back.

“It’s healed,” Laura stated flatly. In her mind she was asking _why?_

Why attack her and then come back to heal the damage? Was it just because she didn’t want to get caught?

“I’m not a Death Eater.”

 _Well, that was abrupt_ , Laura thought. She swallowed sharply.

“Cool.”

 _Cool?_ Unbelievable. Her hand shook slightly, a phantom from the day before. She was still unsure if she needed to arm herself or not.

She kept hearing Carmilla’s voice, thick with her trademark sneer, throwing the same insult at her, over and over again, across the years.

_“We were just talking about which House we thought we might be in,” Perry said, curls bouncing off her shoulders cheerfully. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get Gryffindor—that was my mom’s House, and I take more after her than my dad, anyway. What about you?”_

_“Slytherin.” There was no intonation to her voice. It was just a flat statement._

_“Well, that’s… confident,” LaF mused. The train rattled. “Any, uh, particular_ reasoning _, there?”_

_“Just a hunch.” She eyed Laura up and down, and then gave a little sniff of a laugh. “What about you?”_

_“I dunno. I guess I’d like to be in Gryffindor, but I’d be happy anywhere, really. Hufflepuff sounds nice.”_

_“Spoken like a true mudblood.”_

Carmilla was still staring at her, entirely unreadable. She nodded, then, not unlike she had the night before, in the Entrance Hall. She turned, dropping smoothly back to the pitch. From fifty feet, Laura watched her land gracefully and stride away.

She watched her all the way back up to the castle, and only then did she head for the changing rooms, herself.

* * *

 

The morning of Christmas Eve, Laura did not leave the castle. She woke with the familiar desire coursing through her, memories of soaring and cheers still ringing in her ears, half from dreams and half from reality, but she batted these down in favor of a long breakfast and several open textbooks.

She was supposed to be practicing nonverbal spells, on top of the assignments that would be due when classes resumed. Perry’s first letter of the break had arrived the night before during dinner, reminding her of both these facts in no uncertain terms.

Perry’s lack of confidence in her would have been insulting if it wasn’t so well-founded. Laura had not given a single thought to her schoolwork since break had begun.

There had been more important things on her mind.

The spot on her cheek where Carmilla had cursed her was still faintly cool to the touch, though the skin was entirely smooth and there was no sign of damage when she very nearly pressed her face to the mirror in search of evidence. Whatever that spell had been—and Laura had certainly never heard it before, or read it in any textbook—Carmilla had performed the counter-curse perfectly.

Laura tried not to think about why the other girl had known such a curse in the first place, and yet it was the _only_ thought that she seemed capable of focusing on. Despite setting out her notes and books diligently at an empty table in the library, she had not been able to take in a single word of the transfiguration review she was trying to get through. Her gaze kept darting to the windows and the distant Quidditch pitch.

Finally, when she knew she should be feeling the first tremors of hunger and the sun had reached a peak high enough that Laura could no longer see it from the library, she gave up. She was never going to retain anything at this rate, and she couldn’t bring herself to drift into the Great Hall with the lunch crowd. Her stomach was roiling with nerves, not appetite.

She headed for the pitch.

The moment she had given in, her head had begun to spin with possibilities. If she asked Carmilla any of these questions—and there were certainly enough of them (Why did you curse me? Why did you _heal_ me? Why did you find it so important to emphasize that you aren’t a Death Eater?)—what would the other girl do to her? Would she attack again? Would she merely storm off?

Most importantly: would she answer any of them honestly?

Food was the farthest thing from her mind when she came under the shadow of the pitch, nausea sweeping uneasily through her. She couldn’t explain why the sensation was so strong. She was _not_ afraid of Carmilla, or she didn’t think she was, and she had every right to want answers. There was no reason to feel even vaguely guilty, yet that was the best description Laura could give to the unfamiliar sensation clenching in her gut as she collected her broom.

She needn’t have worried. The brief swooping sensation in her stomach when she spotted a figure cutting through the air overhead immediately fell as flat as one of LaF’s badly timed puns.

There was not one, but two figures on broomsticks. Davie and Melanie were chasing a Bludger, whacking it back and forth at one another and yelling cheery insults.

Laura swallowed past the aching sensation in the back of her throat, and forced a smile onto her face as she kicked off to join them.

She nearly took the Bludger in the head, not paying enough attention to her ascent. Melanie called a hurried apology, hitting the ball with a deliberate _crack_ and sending it flying far across the pitch. The beaters came up level with her.

“I didn’t think we’d have any more interruptions,” Melanie said. “It’s not like there’s anyone left at the castle.”

“More interruptions?” Laura barely heard the rest of her friendly words.

Melanie’s smile faltered. “Yes. _Karnstein_ was here about—what was it, Davie? An hour ago?”

“Yep,” he said through gritted teeth, readying his bat. Laura slipped to the side to give him more room. He sent the careening Bludger on another lap around the stands. The beaters watched its departure, their eyes sharp in the way Laura’s were when she was focused on the Quaffle.

“She was… unpleasant,” he added.

“Well that’s a given, naturally,” tossed in Melanie. “Good timing, you missing her.”

“Yeah, she’s always had it out for you.”

Laura nodded, ignoring the twinge that resonated through her ribcage and down her spine. She gripped her broom tighter, an unbidden reflex.

“—weird, for sure. Hey, was she the one you had that ‘disagreement’ with?” Davie asked. Laura had missed the beginning of what he was saying, but she was sure it didn’t matter. He had been focused mostly on Melanie as he was talking.

“What?” Laura asked dumbly.

He repeated himself, glancing at Melanie as he did the last thing Laura wanted—explaining further. “When you showed up the other night with that nasty cut on your cheek.” He gestured at her face. “You said you got in a disagreement. I figure it must have been with Karnstein.”

“Oh, tell me you got a shot in,” Melanie said, her eyes lighting up.

“No,” Laura said. The word was harsh and quick and it earned her two identical eyebrow raises. “No,” she tried again, more slowly, “It, uh, wasn’t her.”

The silence was uncomfortable. Laura didn’t know why she had just lied—Davie and Melanie were her teammates, her friends. And, more importantly, it _had_ been Carmilla that cursed her.

 _But she came back and fixed it_.

The same _why?_ pressed at her for what must have been the hundredth time that day alone. Laura shook her head.

“There’s some studying I need to do,” she said abruptly.

Davie’s eyebrows drew together. “You just got here.”

“Right. Yeah. I mean, I forgot that I had that to do. The studying. Which I should do… now.”

Their stares were not growing any less perplexed. Laura’s ears were hot; she was sure they were burning pink. She didn’t wait to see if they would argue further and she did not say goodbye.

It was a long trudge back up to the castle.

* * *

 

At dinner, Laura sat with Davie and Melanie, having little other choice when they were among the only Gryffindors still at Hogwarts. Mercifully, they did not bring up the incident from earlier. Melanie asked her how the studying had gone, Laura gave a deceitful ‘good’ in reply (she had made no more progress than that morning), and the topic moved happily on to professional Quidditch.

Davie was a loyal supporter of the Chudley Cannons, which were performing dreadfully this year, and Laura and Melanie spent the meal cheerfully egging him on as he defended their choice to trade Harvick Jones the year before.

“He wasn’t living up to his contract—I tell you, they’re better without him. It’s a mental thing. Team morale.”

“Great morale booster, losing those last three games,” Melanie put in with a smirk.

Davie sputtered, waving his arms and nearly upending a bowl of mashed potatoes that a second year boy was trying to pass to his friend.

Laura froze mid-laugh, the expression falling off her face as she caught sight of a lone figure at the Ravenclaw table. At some point in the past half hour, Carmilla had found her way into the Hall, and was poking at a plate of turkey with a gloomy scowl set across her pristine features.

Laura had thought there were at least a few members of each house still in the castle, but the table was utterly abandoned. Carmilla looked small, somehow, her shoulders hunched and her gaze distant.

As Laura watched, staring blatantly with little regard to how it might look, the other girl pushed her plate aside and stood up. Laura watched her all the way up the Hall and through the doors, her heartrate quickening into a trot as she followed the slant of her shadow to see which way she went.

She stood up.

“Heading to bed?” Melanie asked, her eyebrows raising as she paused her forkful of pie midway to her mouth.

“Oh. Yeah.” Laura lied.

She hopped the bench and turned left out of the doors, making her way out into the fading daylight.

For a moment, she thought she had been mistaken. And then she caught the flicker of movement halfway down the path and a lone silhouette revealed itself.

No, she was right.

This was a terrible idea, not that she’d had many good ones in recent days. The inkling of doubt was small; it did little to affect the speed of her footfalls as she traced Carmilla’s path down to the pitch.

Answers.

She needed answers.

Carmilla was already in the air, by the time Laura arrived at the pitch. She hovered a moment in the shadows by the changing rooms, twisting her broom handle in her hands. Carmilla’s shape was lithe and quick, dark against the pink of the sky and the grayish white of the windswept clouds on the horizon.

Taking a wary breath, Laura rose up level with the goal posts at the opposite end of the field.

Her Ravenclaw scarf slung over her shoulder, Carmilla was heaving Quaffles one after the other through the center hoop, dodging back and forth as though to confuse an invisible keeper. She had clearly bewitched the Quaffles, as they soared back to her like magnets, giving her an endless supply.

Laura could interrupt her. Swoop into her way and demand that she explain herself. She ran through the same scenarios she’d been simulating in her head since the incident, and then gave her head a decisive shake. She should at least get some practice first. Let Carmilla know she was here. Perhaps if she took away the element of surprise…

It was a naïve thought, but she couldn’t help but hope that Carmilla would explain _without_ a forcible interrogation.

She couldn’t explain where the idea came from. It most definitely had not come from a place of experience, or even one of logic. Carmilla was not someone to willingly supply anything that was not a direct insult. Experience should have taught her _that_.

There was only one Quaffle left in the school’s supply stock, and it was battered and torn, its insides popping out through the seams.

It would have to do.

Laura charmed it as usual, swerving around the hoops to guard from the backside as well, as she sent the battered Quaffle on a wild journey.

The third time her charm lost its hold and was forced to dive to rescue the ball, she lost interest in her own practice. It wasn’t why she had come up here in the first place—neither earlier today nor right now.  

Carmilla was still dumping her stream of Quaffles through the goal hoops. She did not miss a single throw, so very unlike her performance during matches.  

Laura watched her for a long while, reading the tension in her shoulders, and then shook her head and headed for the ground. There was something angry in Carmilla’s posture, in her forceful throws. They had been at this for nearly an hour, not a word spoken between them, and it was clear that wasn’t going to change.

A Quaffle bounced off the snow just beside her, as her feet touched down. Her head jerked up.

Carmilla was hovering, her other Quaffles floating around her in slow circles. She said nothing, as Laura picked up the Quaffle and soared back into the air.

“Your Quaffle charm isn’t very effective,” the other girl commented.

“Neither is your playing,” Laura shot back, defensiveness rising on some instinct outside of her control.

Oddly, Carmilla seemed to find this amusing. Her eyes gleamed with humor, rather than malice.

“Here,” she said smoothly, giving her wand a casual flick. Laura flinched, but it seemed Carmilla really _was_ only trying to charm the Quaffles, rather than hex her.

The ball hummed as if brought to life, leaping from her grip and quivering in mid-air. It soared past her, whizzing through the hoops, and then looped around to go at it again.

Laura stared, still hovering in place.

“It’ll just keep scoring, y’know, if you don’t stop it.”

Laura blinked, watching as the Quaffle arched around for another goal. She turned back to Carmilla.

_Why did you use that curse on me? Why are you being nice right now?_

“Thanks,” she said shortly.

Carmilla shrugged, and then leaned to the side and soared back to her own end of the pitch. Laura frowned at her back, saw her resume her tireless practice, and then turned to her own.

 _Chicken_ , she thought at herself.

* * *

 

Perry had bought her a broom care kit, and Laura found herself touched that her friend, so confused by Quidditch, understood it’s importance enough to give her a gift she would truly enjoy. LaF, true to form, had wrapped up a box of Zonko’s products.

Laura wrote them each a separate thank you letter, and placed them by her bedside for Cogs to take when he returned. She had sent him off with gifts the night before, and did not doubt that he was settled with her father right now, and in no rush to get back.

He was in Ireland. It was the safest place she could think to send him, though he had protested quite strongly when she first brought up the idea. Still, he had friends there. Old buddies from his school days. She had been forced to lie to him, to make it work, and she felt a deep sense of dread and guilt in the aftermath of her scheming.

Someday, she knew he would have to find out what was really happening—the war that was tearing through the world she now lived in. If he knew, she doubted he would let her keep attending Hogwarts. He would never believe that it was the safest place in the world.

And the more he knew, the more danger he would be in.

It was better this way, she told herself, not for the first time, when she unwrapped the box of homemade pastries he had sent for her.

She wrote him a letter, too. A lengthy one.

In none of these letters did she mention Carmilla, or the scar that was no longer a scar.  

At Christmas dinner, Professor Dumbledore had passed out crackers, which exploded and produced full-sized presents and gag gifts. The headmaster had spent the majority of the meal wearing a fuzzy pink hat and a rather cheery grin.

Laura was feeling content, as she meandered out to the pitch, her Cleansweep resting on her shoulder and a new lightness in her step. She’d gotten butterbeer flavored chewing gum and a nice set of chessmen in her crackers, and there was just something _magical_ about being at Hogwarts on Christmas.

She had always gone home for the holidays, before.

Carmilla was already up in the pitch, which was not a surprise. She had skipped the Christmas feast, which _was_ odd, but, then, Laura wasn’t exactly familiar with Carmilla’s habits. She had made a point to not care what the other girl was doing from the moment LaFontaine had slammed the compartment door behind her, that very first day on the Hogwarts’ Express.

The other girl barely glanced in Laura’s direction, but moments after she kicked off she found a Quaffle ducking in and out of her empty goal posts. She eyed the seemingly friendly gesture for a moment, and then sighed. She had already made her decision—had spent the better part of last night and this morning talking herself into it—but part of her was still questioning the _sanity_.

Laura sped past the other girl, coming up sharply to catch the Quaffle Carmilla had just hurled. Her pulse jumped, as Carmilla’s dark eyes locked on her.

The spares fell away with a flick of Carmilla’s wand. Swallowing her nerves and feeling distinctly like she had just drifted outside her own body, Laura tossed the Quaffle back to her. Carmilla caught it deftly, frowning. Laura’s skin prickled as the other girl blatantly sized her up.

There was a long moment of stillness. Laura adjusted her grip on her broom, feeling the bite of the wind through the holes in her battered, hand-me-down gloves. She wanted to look away, but Carmilla’s stare was unwavering, and Laura wasn’t about to be the one that balked. Carmilla might be the star in charms, or potions, or _any_ class, really, but they were on the Quidditch pitch, now.

This was Laura’s domain.

 _It’s just like any other match_. They were a keeper and a chaser, and Carmilla’s muscles tensed obviously before she made her move. She hurled the Quaffle with no more grace that during their matches. Laura caught it, giving it a little spin on her fingertips before she flipped it back.

“Try again,” she suggested.

Carmilla scowled, and threw it again—harder. Laura shot to the side, blocking the shot at the right hoop with ease.

She could see Carmilla’s teeth, now, bared in frustration. 

 _I must be crazy_ , she thought. “You’re going about this all wrong, you know.” _Or suicidal._

“Oh?” Carmilla snapped. Her eyes flashed, and there was the rage, again. Laura bit back her fear, trying not to think of the sing-song incantation smoothing the scar from her face. She could still feel the spot, chilly with phantom pain.

 _“Yes,”_ she said. “You can only score when there isn’t a Keeper at the hoops, right?”

Carmilla’s face was tight. “Fuck you.”

“I’m trying to help you, idiot,” Laura shot back. “If you just aim to put the Quaffle through the hoop, you’ll never get past a living, breathing person!”

Carmilla chucked the Quaffle again. Laura snapped it up, toying with it to prove her point.  

“Switch,” she ordered, soaring forward and away from the hoops.

Carmilla opened her mouth in protest, but at Laura’s insistent eyebrow lift, she rolled her eyes and flew in front of the center hoop.

“If you want to learn how to _score_ , you need to learn how to _keep_.”

She vaulted the Quaffle, and it soared past Carmilla’s left leg, just clearing the edge of the hoop. Carmilla recalled it with a flick of her wand, chin jutting out defiantly.

“I’m not a Keeper,” she griped.

“And what, you think I’m a Chaser?”

Carmilla glared, and heaved the Quaffle back into her arms with much more force than was necessary.

“I’m giving you a cue about where I’m going to throw,” Laura said patiently, pulling back her arm. “Focus on where you think I’m going.”

She gave Carmilla a moment, and then threw. Carmilla dove left. The Quaffle soared smoothly through the right hoop.

Carmilla swore, loudly and profusely. Laura half-expected her to pull her wand, but she just snarled.

“I told you left,” she informed the other girl. “And you believed me.”

“You _told me_ to read you,” Carmilla said through gritted teeth. Her broom was shaking in place, her knuckles bony and white on the handle.

“Yes,” Laura said. She was almost surprised at her own calmness. Then again, if Carmilla had wanted to hurt her, she would have done so by now. “Now, read me in the _split second_ before I shoot. Everything else before that? It’s a lie.”

Carmilla squared her shoulders.

Laura showed her left, again, and then threw straight as an arrow. This time, Carmilla did not move. She seemed almost surprised, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline, as she caught the Quaffle smoothly between her palms.

She threw it back—lighter this time. Almost… curiously.

“Again,” she requested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update! I've edited all of the existing chapters. There's some new scenes, and some fixes in grammar/wording/etc... BUT the main point is that this story is NOT DEAD. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr as jg-firefly, where you are welcome to complain about my terrible updating.


	5. On Top of the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura doesn't know what to make of Carmilla anymore... but figuring her out is easier said than done.

_Spring of 1974 (Fourth Year)_

Laura wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell her friends about the dark curse Carmilla had cast on her. There was no evidence of it, now, but that didn’t erase it from history.

_Sectumsempra_. The spell was burned into her brain. Some mornings, she woke up hearing it, jolting upright to find herself wrapped in sweaty sheets. Other mornings, she awakened feeling light as air, disappointed to discover she was not up in the pitch, after all.

She could not find the curse in any of her books. A part of her wanted to ask Carmilla—take the direct approach… but something was holding her back.

_“I’m not a Death Eater,”_ she had insisted, and, crazy as it was, Laura had believed her.

For not being a Death Eater, though, Carmilla certainly kept interesting company. The first day back from the holidays, Laura passed her in the corridor, surrounded by a slew of unsavory characters. Rosier, Wilkes… even that slimy third year, Severus Snape.

Carmilla had not met her gaze.

Perry resumed their late-night study sessions almost immediately, and was frustrated to learn that Laura had made no progress at all on her nonverbal skills.

“You were supposed to _practice!”_ she complained. “What did you even _do_ all break?”

Laura shrugged. “Quidditch?”

This earned her a high-five from LaFontaine, but an eye-roll from Perry.

“We’re gonna _slaughter_ Ravenclaw,” LaF insisted. “Man, Laura, if they got last this year, wouldn’t that be fantastic? Now that’d be some quality revenge.”

“Yeah,” Laura agreed.

In her head, though, she was picturing the last day of Christmas break, and the Quaffle brushing past her by a hair for the score. She saw Carmilla’s face burst into a radiant smile, both fists flying into the air as she summersaulted over backwards, whooping.

Laura had never seen anything like it.

“Just _‘yeah’?_ How about _‘hell yeah?’_ C’mon, Hollis, you hate Karnstein more than anyone!”

“Right. I do. Sorry. I guess I’m just tired; it’s been a long first week back.”

“Enough talk about Quidditch,” Perry snipped. She had already tossed aside her robes and loosened her Gryffindor tie. She focused on the book before her, waving her wand.

Laura nodded, lining up with her own target and letting herself fall into routine.

They had each moved their books just slightly, since that first night. LaF had succeeded more than the others, lifting their book a solid centimeter before it thudded down in a cloud of dust.

_“Wingardium Leviosa,”_ Laura murmured aloud, hovering the book up to the ceiling and back. Then, she swallowed and repeated her movements exactly, lips moving without sound. The book gave a little turn, the pages fluttering, and stilled.

It was always like this. She hadn’t had any _real_ success since that first night. There was something _lacking_ , in not being able to voice the words.

Perry seemed to believe that the missing piece was _wanting_ it badly enough that you _willed_ it to happen. Her face was dark and her forehead lined. Her chin jutted out sharply. Thus far, she had had the least success of the three, and it seemed to be wearing upon her.

Laura was about to make a comment, maybe suggest that Perry relax a little… when the other girl’s book lifted upright, tugged as if on an invisible string, and set itself back down, standing up to face her.

Perry seemed to deflate, and she was panting as if she had just run a long race.

LaF clapped her on the shoulder. “Nice, Perr!”

“Well, _I_ practiced over break,” she declared. She was smiling primly, eyes alight with pride.

The door flew open, before they could celebrate further, and Laura jumped, pointing her wand instinctively.

“Carmilla?” she said, her voice escaping without permission.

“You shouldn’t be out this late,” Carmilla declared. She was not out of breath, but she looked _wild_. Her hair was tossed back as though she had been running. She was in nightclothes, which were ruffled, but there was something in her expression that was hard to read. She seemed to be ignoring the existence of LaFontaine and Perry, her gaze locked solely on Laura. “If you get caught, y’know, that would be a lot of detention. You might even miss the game.”

“Nice threat, coming from you,” LaF snapped. “What are _you_ doing out of bed, Karnstein?”

Carmilla sneered, finally acknowledging that Laura was not alone. “None of your business.”

She spun on her heel and stormed out, leaving the three of them to exchange bewildered looks.

“Well, come on!” Perry hissed, snatching up her things. They bolted, ducking through the corridors and scrambling up the stairs to the Tower. They did not run into any trouble along the way, though Laura swore she heard Peeves tearing about in the Trophy Room as they rushed past, and more than once they froze at the end of a corridor, fearing that a shadow up ahead might materialize into Filch.

Once they were safely in the common room, they collapsed into the empty chairs around the fire, breathing heavily and staring at one another with the widened eyes of criminals who could not believe their good fortune.  

Oddly, they were not the only ones still up—Potter and his cohorts were sitting in the corner, compiling a massive collection of paper cranes. Remus Lupin was the only one who looked up, apparently startled by their arrival. His cloak looked patchier than usual, dirt gathered about the cuffs.

The four of them seemed very _awake_.

Perry’s eyes had narrowed, no doubt suspicious about their intentions, but she said nothing, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh.

“That was close,” she admitted. “What on earth did Karnstein want, anyway?"

“Yeah, and did you call her _Carmilla?”_ LaF added, their brow knitted together.

Perry was still going, though, and Laura found herself very grateful to have been spared having to answer. “She just… _showed up_. How did she even know where to find us? And why would she _want_ to, if it wasn’t to get us in trouble?”

Laura just shook her head.

That was a very, very good question.

* * *

LaFontaine was already fully decked out, when Laura arrived at breakfast the second Saturday in February. Their face was painted crimson, with a large ‘G’ written in glitter on their forehead. Beside them, Perry looked unassuming, with Gryffindor ribbons in her hair and a lion pin on her chest.

“Eat quick,” Danny warned, as Laura claimed her seat.

“Oh, no,” Perry complained. “You are _not_ going down there early!”

“Relax, Perr, we aren’t practicing. Danny just likes to hype up the team before we play.”

Laura poured herself a tall glass of orange juice, shoveling scrambled eggs onto her plate. Gryffindors kept wandering by, clapping her on her shoulder and calling out their ‘good luck’s. When she dared glance across the Great Hall towards the Ravenclaw table, she found Carmilla hunched over a full plate, making no move to eat. She looked ill.

No one was bolstering her up before the match, or even sitting with her.

Laura looked away quickly.

When she finally set down her silverware, Danny came with her out of the castle, as if she had been waiting. Laura had to double her pace to keep up with the other girl’s much longer legs, and Danny talked a mile a minute as they rushed along.

“Huxley’s got the speed with his new broom to outpace even me, so we’ll need to be on our toes. You may have to hold onto the Quaffle for a little longer than usual; I’d rather you wait than risk it getting back into Ravenclaw’s hands. Now, of course, we won’t need to worry about Karnstein _scoring_ , but that doesn’t mean she’s not a key player when it comes to assists. We can’t just count her out entirely.”

“I know,” Laura said, lip quirking into the faintest of smirks. She had heard all of this already, during the course of the past few weeks.

“Viera is going to try to take you out. I’ve got Pearce set to be your bodyguard, so he’ll be waiting to swoop in and send away any Bludgers that come up-field, so I don’t want you worrying about a hit. That would just be a distraction. This is going to be a long one—we’re going for points, here, so Johnson isn’t going to catch that Snitch even if he’s got the chance. It’s a risk, and we’re _taking_ it.”

Laura simply nodded along. The pitch loomed ahead.

Danny was still talking, as they slipped into the Gryffindor changing rooms, but Laura had tuned her out.

She changed quickly, pulling on her scarlet Quidditch robes. Distantly, she wondered what Danny would say if she knew how her star Keeper had spent the holidays—how she had coached a member of an enemy team.

Danny would never understand. But, then again, Laura didn’t understand it, herself.

And, yet, her gaze sought out the raven-haired Chaser the moment they emerged onto the field. She barely heard the roars from the stands.

Carmilla didn’t look at her, her expression dark and her eyes downcast.

Huxley, in comparison, wore a roguish grin as he clamped Danny’s hand in a brutal shake. She glared back unflinchingly, her hair billowing like fire in the chilly February wind.

When they kicked off, Laura’s heart soared with the familiar rush that she could only get during a match. It was so much different than being at practice, or performing solo drills. Team practice was gritty, painful, and filled with failure. A match was _glory_ , just waiting to be claimed.

Aldi Yeller, the third Ravenclaw Chaser, made an attempt on her right hoop. She almost scoffed, as she caught it with one hand and lobbed it to Potter.

The play focused itself downfield. Potter scored, and Carter got a hit in on Huxley before he could get even halfway back to Laura. Danny recovered, circling the Ravenclaw Keeper and heaving the Quaffle to Copeland, who passed it off to Potter.

Laura let her gaze drift to the flashing sign that was dangling from the Gryffindor section of the stands.

“Ha!” she chuckled, shaking her head.

‘HOTTIE HOLLIS SAVES THE DAY.’

Sirius Black truly knew no shame. She caught sight of him framing his fingers into a heart, and rolled her eyes. And then she frowned. The portly Pettigrew kid was bouncing at his side, but the third member of the James Potter fan club was absent—the Lupin boy.

She didn’t have time to muse.

Carmilla Karnstein was streaking down the field, the Quaffle under her arm and Potter in hot pursuit.

The scoreboard read 30-0.

Laura adjusted her grip on the broom handle, reading the Chaser’s body language. And then she made up her mind, shifting to the left, and felt the Quaffle slam into her outstretched forearm.

There was no chance to see Carmilla’s reaction, because she was already gone, chasing Danny back towards the Ravenclaw side of the pitch. Laura caught her breath, her arm stinging slightly from the contact.

An hour later, though, when it was Carmilla facing her down once more, rather than Huxley or Yeller, her face was drawn with concentration.

Laura’s heart quickened, and she _guessed_. There was no tell, nothing to read—just pure intuition. She barely nicked the edge of the Quaffle, but it was enough to knock it from its path. It pinged off the hoop, soaring downward.

Copeland looped around to catch it, but Laura didn’t care about her. She watched Carmilla’s face contort, and then the other girl was gone.

Johnson nearly caught the Snitch four times, during the full three hours of gameplay. Each time he let it get away on Danny’s orders. Laura had never been more relieved than the moment when mercy seemed to win out in her heart, and she shot the signal to their Seeker.

He had the Snitch within two minutes, having apparently been following its progress lazily since his last sighting.

It was the ‘ass-kicking of the century,’ in LaFontaine’s words. It was not an exaggeration: the final score was 260-0.

The party in Gryffindor Tower, in the aftermath, knew no limits.

Several of the seventh years succeeded in lifting Danny over their heads for a round of Gryffindor war chants. Some industrious student secured them a series of food platters from the kitchen. There was even champagne—which mysteriously appeared just after McGonagall departed for the evening, having given a touching speech on their ‘school pride and exceptional teamwork.’

Laura swore she had seen a tear twinkling in the Professor’s eye.

“Hollis!”

She jumped. She had been hiding off to the side for the majority of the party—after her classmates had gotten their fill of chanting her name and proclaiming her the ‘Greatest Keeper in Gryffindor History.’ There was even a little song, which had made her blush profusely.

It was Sirius Black, looking particularly jovial with his tie looped around his forehead. He was taller than she was—a byproduct of her being vertically challenged more so than anything to do with Black’s recent growth spurt—and as a result he had to tilt his head down to meet her gaze.

“With that shy smile, it’s a miracle I don’t have to fend off more suitors to find you. They must be afraid of getting in my way—there’s really no other explanation.”

“Charming,” she commented, raising an eyebrow. “Did Potter dare you to come over here? Is he waiting to see if I’ll kick you somewhere that’s highly improper?”

He staggered back, clutching a hand to his chest. “You wound me, Hollis! My love for you knows no bounds. I would leap this tower, if that would prove my sincerity.”

“By all means, leap the tower if you really feel that strong of a need to show off. But I’m still not going to go out with you.”

“Very well, then. I shall hold out hope for next year!”

He ducked away, receiving claps on the shoulders from his mates—still sans Lupin, she noted—and within minutes he was gulping down champagne and back to making crude jokes. Potter caught her eye, mouthing ‘good choice,’ with a wicked grin.

Laura laughed, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her thoughts had gone elsewhere.

* * *

 

She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for, when she slipped from the Tower in the early morning light and jogged down to the Quidditch pitch. The sight of the empty playing field, though, sapped all of her energy.

She turned back without changing or even taking her Cleansweep for a few laps—and then froze.

A single figure was winding their way down the path. She paused, too, when she caught sight of Laura. And then turned and started back the way she had come.

“Wait!” shouted Laura, her feet working of their own accord as she dashed after her. Her broom bounced on her shoulder, her robes swishing about her legs.

Carmilla did not wait, but she did not run, either, allowing Laura to catch up with her just outside the Entrance Hall.

“Hey,” Laura gulped, sucking in deep breaths. A line of sweat had formed on her brow. Carmilla blinked, but said nothing. “The—the pitch is yours. Y’know. If you want it.”

“Because I need the practice, right?” Carmilla bit out. “No thanks, Hollis.”

She spun, and even Laura calling her name did no good. Carmilla was gone without another word.

* * *

 

“Psst. Look!” hissed LaF, amusement thick in their voice.

Laura lifted her head from her notes. Professor Binns was still droning on at the front of the room, facing the board. She swiveled to follow LaF’s pointed head tilt, and found Carmilla in her usual seat in the darkest corner.

She was alone, the seats around her abandoned, and her eyes were rimmed with red. She looked sick. Hell, she looked dead.

“Someone’s not coping well with the loss,” LaF muttered.

Laura could not bring herself to agree, knitting her brows together as she studied the Ravenclaw’s face.

When Carmilla’s eyes flicked up and found hers, the other girl glared. This time, Laura did not look away. She lifted her fingers, tilting her head with the question: _Seven?_

Carmilla looked away, her expression twisting. When she looked back, though, and found Laura still maintaining the contact, she rolled her eyes and gave a little nod.

Laura was distracted, through the rest of their classes. LaF lost twenty points for Gryffindor after practically making her entire potion for her, and Perry went on about it all the way through dinner. Across the hall, Laura caught sight of Carmilla eating her dinner. She was alone, again. Two of her own Housemates passed behind her, saying something that made the girl’s shoulders stiffen. They laughed.

“Look, I’m sorry!” Laura snapped, cutting off Perry mid-rant. “I’ll study more. I’ll read the board. Just _drop it_ , okay?”

She had never so much as raised her voice at her friends before. She had gotten flustered, and she had ranted and stammered, but she had never _yelled_. Perry’s eyes grew wide, and LaFontaine went very still. Laura regretted the outburst at once, a hot weight settling in her stomach. She dropped her gaze down to her untouched stew.

“Um… Everything okay, there, Laura?” LaF probed, their voice tentative.

She sighed. “I’m fine. Just… tense. Exams coming up. Quidditch.” She waved a hand vaguely. “Y’know.”

“Uh-huh,” Perry said slowly, doubt pouring off of her. “Laura, you know you’ll get the nonverbal spells, soon, right? You’ve been making excellent progress, and LaF and I were really just lucky the other night—”

Laura dropped her silverware with a clatter.

“I’m gonna go for a walk,” she said.

Though they shifted in their seats and glanced at one another, neither of them followed her.

She waited on the pitch from six until nine, pushing her broom to its limits as she soared in and out of the goal posts. The sun had set long ago, and Laura knew she was being overly hopeful in thinking that Carmilla might yet show. Once seven had come and gone, reality had begun sinking in.

Still, when she saw someone making their way down to the pitch, her heart leapt.

And then it sank.

“HOLLIS!” McGonagall growled.

Laura dropped obediently, landing lightly in front of the professor. The older woman glared at her, eyes glinting with open disapproval. “It’s past dark. What are you _thinking_? Twenty points from Gryffindor. _And_ now I have to give you detention... Five o’clock, the next three Fridays. My office.” Laura opened her mouth in protest, but McGonagall held up a finger. “And before you start arguing that you have Quidditch practice, you should have thought of that sooner. I’m only doing what any other professor would.” Her lips were very thin, a vein jumping in her neck. “Make no mistake, Miss Hollis; I am not happy about this.”

“Yes, Professor,” Laura mumbled, her face burning.

She followed McGonagall back to the castle in silence, slipped past her friends in the common room without a word, and headed straight for her four poster. Her head was like a hornets’ nest, thoughts buzzing with humiliation and anxiety and, above all the rest: _disappointment._

At least there was one thing she knew for certain:

She was done trying to help Carmilla Karnstein.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did promise an update in December, didn't I? I am still planning to fully finish this before I begin any active posting... but for now I will promise an update by the end of January at the very least. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Drop me a line on here, if you like, or feel free to come find me on tumblr as jg-firefly.


	6. Questions (I've Got a Few)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A conversation. A Quidditch match. A realization.

_Spring of 1974 (Fourth Year)_

“I’m never going to get this,” Laura declared, throwing herself into the nearest chair. A cloud of dust kicked up and she watched the flecks drift through the dim candlelight.

She had still not lifted her book more than two inches. Even with the interruption to their sessions—Perry had point-blank refused to indulge in more late-night adventures, after Carmilla’s interruption—her friends had found their individual successes with seeming ease.

LaF was floating theirs around the room, these days, while Perry had returned to more advanced matters—things like the nonverbal shielding charm that Laura had suggested from the start. The pair of them paused in the middle of one such exercise at Laura’s interruption, the book LaF had been trying to throw at Perry falling with a clatter to the floor.

“Now, Laura, that’s not the right attitude,” huffed Perry, crossing her arms. “You’ve got to keep trying if you want to make it work! I can practice with you, again, if you like—”

“No, no, I think I’m just—I’m done for the day.” She stood, shouldering her bag, “I’m going to head down to the pitch.”

“Oh, dear. You’ll wear yourself out, trying to fit in more Quidditch all the time... and really, Laura, you’re _already_ the hero of the Gryffindor team. No matter how much James brags.”

She shrugged, though her cheeks did flare a bit at the compliment.

“I still owe it to the team.”  

This was not entirely true. Certainly, her final detention was due in just a few hours, during the full team practice, and there was no denying that Danny had been furious from the moment she heard the news—especially seeing as she had confronted McGonagall directly about it, with unpleasant results _(“I want the Cup just as badly as you do, Miss Lawrence. You’d do well to remember that.”)_ —and yet, right now, Laura was craving the pitch in a separate way. One that had nothing to do with the pitying look she had received from Davie in Herbology, or the way Danny had scowled not quite _at_ her, but definitely in her _direction,_ that very morning.

The corridors were mostly abandoned, as she wound through the castle. She caught the final staircase just before it spun out of reach, and when she slipped onto the grounds and into the cool March breeze, she felt like her lungs were working properly for the first time in days.

All she needed was an hour, maybe two; enough time to clear her head, feel the familiar weight of her Cleansweep beneath her and relish in how singularly _easy_ it was to be one with the broom. There was no thought required, no careful calibration of wandwork with memorized spells. Quidditch just… was.

Laura had nearly kicked off, pulse thrumming and feet sinking into the spring mud under the turf, before she saw the shadow and felt the kick of déjà vu like a blow to the gut.

It could have been anyone—her vision was not nearly good enough to make out a face properly from the ground—but Laura knew, with a sticky, sinking sensation, that it was not.

“Hey!” Carmilla shouted, in the precious seconds while Laura hesitated on the pitch below.

Laura’s broom jumped to her shoulder as she fought the squelch of her boots back towards the changing rooms and the path that lay beyond.

 _Why can’t just one thing go right?_ she cursed internally.

Maybe Perry was right. Maybe she should have just stayed in the castle and let them cut back their own lessons to baby her through the phases they had already mastered…

Carmilla landed with a _thud_ , directly in front of her, and Laura nearly lost her balance. She skidded in the mud, the impromptu walking stick of her broom handle the only thing that saved her from a tragic face-plant.

“You look like hell, Hollis,” the other girl commented. There was a little crease in her brow, a wrinkle in her nose.

Laura could have shot back _you too_ , or something similar, but she did not have the energy.

“Gee, thanks,” she muttered, instead, and side-stepped Carmilla with her head down.

“Hey, wait,” Carmilla insisted. She blocked Laura’s path again, somehow graceful despite the mud, and drew her to yet another sticky halt. She sank further into the pitch, and crossed her arms, glaring expectantly.

Carmilla cleared her throat. “We could… we could practice, for a little while? Run those drills.”

For a moment, Laura could only blink. The words seemed to process far slower than she was used to—even slower than the names and dates for her History of Magic notes—but then they clicked, and a surge of anger shot through her. Like a candle blazing back to life after a gust of wind.

She could feel the slap of McGonagall’s disappointment as freshly as though it had just been slung at her.

“Why the heck would I agree to that?” she snapped. “I guess _today_ is convenient for you, but when I’m the one asking, then it’s not worth it?”

Carmilla flinched as if she’d been burned.

“Listen, last month—” she started, but Laura was already shaking her head.

“Just practice by yourself, Karnstein. You got here first, today, and fair is fair, or whatever. Just… just _don’t_ be here tomorrow. Okay?”

She turned to go, jerking her boots out of the sucking mud, but Carmilla grabbed her arm.

“I’m _sorry_.”

These two words clicked much faster.

Laura’s breath rushed out, her eyes slipping closed. As she blinked them open, slowly, she recognized the expression on Carmilla’s face as sincerity _._ She actually meant it, and, more surprisingly, Laura found that she _believed_ her—same as she believed Carmilla was not really a Death Eater.

And there was something about her touch. Her fingers were still wrapped about Laura’s arm, but they were not angry or insistent—they were simply there. Like a plea all of their own.

Catching the way her eyes dropped to the contact, Carmilla let go, dragging the offending hand up and through her hair. She left it to scrub at the base of her neck.

“Sorry for what?” Laura managed, at last. She was grateful when her voice came out clear, strong—perhaps even a bit defiant.

Carmilla only hesitated for the barest of seconds. “For what happened, before. At Christmas,” she admitted. “And for not coming down that night, when you got detention, but… mostly for Christmas.” Before Laura could formulate a response, she shook her head and added, “Hollis… why didn’t you turn me in?”

Her eyes, which had previously been locked on her feet, were pinned on Laura, now—dark and swimming with uncertainty.

“I don’t know,” she said. Fear, doubt, confusion… there were too many options to pick from. “I mean, I-I _thought_ about it. I just… I never did.”

Carmilla’s silence was heavy, unreadable, and Laura distracted herself in the pale tint of red that never seemed to fade from the rims of her eyes, and the dark hollows that suggested she was not sleeping properly. And her robes—Laura had never noticed, but they were too short in much the same way that Laura’s own were too short for her. Today they were muddy with the evidence of hours on the pitch, but not all of the stains were new.  

There was a hole in one of her sleeves, too, and she wore no gloves despite the chill that was still in the spring air. Laura could just make out the faded title, on the handle of the splintered broom she held, dated nearly a decade prior.

Her mouth got ahead of her, again, blurting without her permission.

“Aren’t you a Pureblood?” she asked.

Whatever perplexing thoughts had been holding Carmilla’s tongue, they vanished in an instant. She bristled.

“What does that mean?”

Laura flushed red. “No, I just meant—I mean, I know that not all Purebloods have—” she released a groan of frustration. “I just figured that someone with magical parents probably had a family broom or something! And you always use one of the school ones.”

Carmilla glanced at the Shooting Star, her knuckles going white on the handle.

“Well, for that,” she said quietly, “I would need parents.”

If the words could have carried a physical weight, Laura imagined she’d be buried in the mud, right about now. Instead, she felt the ache resound within—felt the stone drop heavy in her gut.

She hadn’t known.

Her thoughts raced back, jumped through every shitty thing she had ever said, had ever agreed with when it came to Carmilla, and felt the remainder of the color falling from her face.

Face blank and tight, Carmilla kicked at a clump of mud and set it flying a few meters to the side.

What could she say? Trying to sympathize seemed the wrong route, and Laura hardly expected Carmilla would want to _bond_ over their shared parental losses.

“I don’t talk about it,” Carmilla said, breaking the silence herself. “I just… I hate people knowing.”

This, at least, she could work with: “Well, then I promise I won’t tell anyone. I happen to be very good with secrets.”

A curious, astonished sort of look washed over Carmilla’s face, and was gone again in just a blink. Laura barely had time to process it—to wonder at where it had come from or what it meant.

“C’mon,” she said, when her fears of Carmilla walking away outweighed her nervousness. She dropped her broom to her side, climbing astride and letting herself drift upwards, rather than launching straight into the skies as was her habit.

Carmilla blinked, her broom lowering more out of surprise than actual purpose.

“What?”

“You wanted to practice, right? Let’s practice.”

The other girl didn’t protest, just gave her an odd sort of half-smile—one that sent a warm shiver down Laura’s spine—before joining her in the air.

While Laura lined herself up in front of the goal hoops, Carmilla called a Quaffle to her hand, holding it balanced lightly in one palm as she considered her options. Laura caught her first attempt with ease. The second, though, she did not even see—it went through the left hoop, and she had flown to the right.

“Ha!” Carmilla cried.

“Don’t get cocky,” Laura warned, even as she smiled. “We’re just getting started.”

Carmilla missed another shot. “I’m not the one who’s cocky,” she said, but there was still a smirk playing on her lips.

Laura caught the next shot, too—just barely—and they entered a game of halfway catch. More often than not, it was Carmilla who was calling back the Quaffle, cursing under her breath at another miss and drawing the ball back in the same breath for another try.

“You put us in last place, you know,” Carmilla commented, as Laura batted away yet another shot.

“Ah. Yes, that had occurred to me.”

The Quaffle tipped through the center hoop. Carmilla punched the air, but did not miss a beat. This time it was Laura who retrieved the Quaffle and tossed it back to her.

She aimed again almost immediately. Laura caught it.

“You’ll be captain next year, won’t you?” Carmilla called. The question was almost casual. Friendly.

This time, when the Quaffle shot past, it was because she was distracted, not because she missed. She frowned.

“I guess I’m… I’m _hoping_ for that, yes.”

Carmilla nodded. She made another shot.

\------

“Why did you burst in on us, that night? Were you trying to get us in trouble?”

They were sitting in the stands, Laura’s feet slung up on the back of the bench in front of her. Carmilla was lying beside, hands folded together over her abdomen.

There hadn’t been much conversation, since they’d settled in. On the pitch, they pushed each other in a way that Laura’s own teammates—and she suspected Carmilla’s, as well—simply could not. She wasn’t even sure how they had wound up here, just that it had seemed like a natural progression when they landed.

Laura had found that she did not want to go back to the castle; not when she still had time left before she was due in McGonagall’s office. Carmilla, apparently, felt similar.

Laura was trying not to consider why that might be.

“I had my reasons,” Carmilla answered cryptically.

It had been like this with most of the questions she had dared to put a voice to—the only real answer she had obtained thus far was that Carmilla did not have any other living relatives. Or, at least, that was the assumption she made when Carmilla reluctantly admitted to living in a muggle orphanage somewhere in London.

Carmilla was also a very _still_ person. Somehow, across the four years they had shared classes and corridors, Laura had never noticed, and yet, the Ravenclaw girl barely seemed to breathe, let alone fidget in place the way Laura did. If she were bothered by the disjointed string of questions Laura had shoved on her, her posture did not show it.

The problem was, Laura did not know where the breaking point was. And, as much as she wanted to know things—to know _everything_ , in fact—she did not want Carmilla to leave.

“Um, so, I heard the next Shooting Star model is supposed to be unbelievable,” she tried, her voice light with forced enthusiasm. “There’s a shrinking compartment built into the handle. And self-grooming twigs, can you imagine? You’d never even _need_ a broom-servicing kit—not that I can even afford one when I actually need it… oh, and, uh, Moisture-resistant charms, too! Uh-huh. No slipping in a storm.”

Carmilla stared at her for a long moment, enough to make Laura uncomfortable. There was something in her expression that Laura couldn’t read, half her face cast in shadow.

“What?” she asked self-consciously. She halfway wanted to apologize for her babbling, wondering if perhaps _that_ would be what drove Carmilla off.

_I still have so many questions, though._

“I don’t actually care about Quidditch, you know,” Carmilla murmured, at long last, and the words were pained. They sounded like they cost her something.  

Laura sat up straight, blinking down at Carmilla in confusion.

“Wait, _what?”_

The other girl’s hair brushed against the side of Laura’s leg as she shrugged her shoulders. Her eyebrows pinched together in a wince. “I just… I’m not all intense about Quidditch. I know you are. All of my teammates are, too. I guess… maybe if I was better at it, I’d care more.”

Laura toyed with her next words, very aware of how close the other girl was lying to her. She could touch her hair right now, if she just lowered her hand. It looked very soft, all curvy waves and silky fly-aways.

“You _are_ good at it, though,” Laura murmured.

She played with her robes to busy her fingers, her eyes on one particular strand of Carmilla’s hair. It was so close. She could slip it between her fingers, see if it was as soft as it looked… Carmilla might not even notice…

Carmilla frowned up at her, her upside-down furrow making Laura’s stomach jump guiltily. Did the other girl know where her thoughts were? What would she say if she did?

She pressed her palms flat on her lap to keep her fingers from trembling.

Touching Carmilla’s hair—touching any part of Carmilla at all—was a terrible idea.

_What is wrong with me?_

“That last game,” she stammered, trying to reclaim her line of thought. It had gotten away from her. _Way_ away from her. “You were the best player on the pitch.”

“We didn’t score a single goal, Hollis.”

Laura shrugged, licking her lips to put some moisture back into them. “I’d say that’s more a testament to my Keeping skills than it is to your Chasing.”

“How very humble of you.”

The teasing in her voice was blatant and easy. Laura’s shoulders relaxed.

“Hey, I’m just saying. Context is important. Think of it this way; how do you do against your own Keeper, during practice?”

Carmilla scoffed. “He’s dreadful. He couldn’t stop a butterfly from making it through those hoops.”

“Oh, right. That’s true.” Laura ran her hand through her hair, thinking. It just seemed… _wrong_ , that Carmilla wasn’t having as much fun as she was. Sometimes, Laura thought Quidditch was the only good thing she had going for her. “Tell you what. Wait for the Slytherin game. On a scale of one to ten, your Keeper is a two. But Slytherin… I’ll give them a six. You play them, and then you can tell me if you _really_ don’t care about Quidditch.”

Carmilla smirked. “And where exactly on that scale do you put yourself, Hollis?”

She laughed and did not answer. Instead, she glanced at her watch, and then down at Carmilla once more. The other girl had closed her eyes, and Laura could see her smiling, ever so slightly. Her eyes were still rimmed with red, though the rest of her was unearthly pale. Even her lips lacked color, and she still hardly seemed to be breathing.

Laura looked away before she could be caught staring, and then got to her feet.

“I have to go,” she said. “I have that detention with McGonagall, and you know how she feels about tardiness.”

“Oh. Right.” Carmilla blinked, but didn’t move. There was a tiny crease between her eyebrows.

Just as Laura turned, ready to make the walk back alone, she found the other girl at her side, pulling her raven locks up into a loose ponytail.

“I think it’s going to rain,” she commented, as they emerged from the stairs and hit the winding path.

Laura wrinkled her nose, scowling at the sky. “Oh, goody.”

Carmilla shrugged. “I like storms, actually. Distant rumbles of thunder, the smell of rain…”

Was _Carmilla Karnstein_ offering something akin to a personal fun fact? On her own, without any pushing? _Again?_ Laura couldn’t help the smile the played at the edge of her lips.

“But wouldn’t you prefer a sunny day? I mean, birds chirping, the smell of fresh-cut grass… you could use the tan,” she teased.  

The other girl jerked to a stop, eyes suddenly wide and serious. “What?” she demanded.

Laura pulled to a halt, turning back with a frown. “Wha—I was just joking.”

_Surely you know how pretty you are._

The thought came out of nowhere, and she stomped it down quickly, glad that it had only resounded in her head and not out loud. She could analyze how she felt about it, later. Right now, Carmilla was shoving past her, her angry footfalls throwing up splashes of water.

“Hey!” Laura threw her hands up. “Carmilla! It was just a joke!”

The other girl did not turn back. Letting out a frustrated _“Aarghhh!”_ Laura shoved her hands deep in her pockets and headed the rest of the way alone, utterly at a loss to explain what had gone wrong.

\------

“Karnstein,” repeated Professor Slughorn. Laura, like the rest of the students clustered about in the dungeon classroom, was watching the Ravenclaw girl expectantly. She was slouched in her seat, picking at a spot on her pants, but at this latest pronouncement she jolted slightly, as if she had just awakened from a long, distant thought.

“Yes?” she sighed, shaking her hair out of her eyes and blinking slowly.

“Glad you could join us,” said Slughorn. The dungeon tittered with muted laughter. “I was asking you about the properties of cleaning potions, and how they vary from cleaning spells.”

“Well, cleaning spells usually focus upon the act of rearranging a space,” Carmilla began slowly, hardly shifting her posture. Her voice was grainy, but lilting in a poetic sort of way. Laura had never noticed that; not until they had stopped throwing insults and curses long enough to sit and _talk_. It was a lovely voice. Laura could listen to her endlessly.

“They require organization and a mindfulness from the user to direct belongings into their spaces. Someone would be unable to effectively use a cleaning spell on an unfamiliar space, without spending extra time to learn the room, or without getting a few things wrong.”

Slughorn was nodding sagely, his relief visible. He had no doubt called on Carmilla because he _expected_ her to know the answer. He usually posed similar questions to LaFontaine, beaming at the response as though the credit for their brilliance was all upon his own shoulders.

Carmilla was still talking: “Cleaning potions are more straightforward, and focus upon the removal of unwelcome substances, which might not respond to spells or charms. Dragon blood, for instance, cannot be vanished with a spell, and has to be charmed into a container of some sort. A proper cleaning potion could dissolve it without a trace.”

Slughorn clapped his hands appreciatively. “Excellent, excellent. Twenty points to Ravenclaw.”

He launched into an explanation on the cleaning spells they were going to be brewing and identifying in their upcoming lessons, but Laura’s gaze stayed on Carmilla, who had returned to her sullen slouch the moment the spotlight had slid away.

It had been several weeks since they had spoken on the pitch. Laura’s head hurt with all of the questions she had not gotten answered: the dark curse and subsequent healing, the Death Eater friends, the unexpected apology, the sudden outburst of anger and the relative silence that had followed since…

Carmilla looked up. Caught her staring.

Laura jumped guiltily, biting her lip and darting her gaze away. She counted her heartbeats, her leg bouncing until she reached ten and dared shift her eyes back to Carmilla. The other girl was looking down at her lap again, but there was a smirk playing on her lips.

Laura’s shoulders relaxed.

It had been like this, ever since that evening—moments like this one, interspersed through their shared lessons. Carmilla would watch her with the faintest of head tilts, or chuckle softly at something she said from across the room, and Laura would melt into a useless puddle.

Whatever had upset Carmilla so thoroughly—and Laura had replayed the words over and over, unable to find anything truly offensive in them—had clearly passed.

She wanted to see her again, wanted to ignore all of her pressing questions in favor of exploring each and every little way she could get Carmilla to smile. It had become so abruptly important to her that it sometimes took her breath away when she caught herself absently picturing the other girl’s eyes, or the line of her jaw, or the angle of her shoulders.

 _It’s not a crush_ , she told herself, for the umpteenth time. Carmilla was just… interesting. Mysterious.

_And very, very pretty._

(How had Laura never noticed that?)

Carmilla looked up again, amusement flickering in her dark eyes. Laura took a breath, and held up her hands with the sort of bravery she had not known she possessed. Her eyes were hopeful as her fingers asked: _Seven?_

When Carmilla shook her head, it was with actual regret, tugging her lower lip into her mouth and furrowing her brow.

It was the regret that got Laura, more than the rejection. She nodded a little too quickly, smiled a little too obviously, and nearly snapped her quill when she hurried to press it to her parchment with faux-note-taking-eagerness.

 _Sure_ , a little voice probed sarcastically at the back of her mind. _Not a crush. Nope. Not at all._

\------

The sun was out, it was finally starting to feel like spring, and Laura had finally, _finally_ , succeeded at floating her textbook across the practice room without so much as moving her lips.

She settled into the stands next to LaF, ready to enjoy the thrill of a game day where she had no expectations to live up to. Even her homework was fully completed.

In every realm except one, everything was lining up perfectly.  

“I hate to say it, Hollis, but I think I’m actually rooting for Ravenclaw,” said LaFontaine.  

“Well, you should be,” Laura agreed. She was proud of the objectivity in her tone. “Slytherin might be our biggest threat, this season. We beat them, sure, but not by a very large margin. If Ravenclaw can keep them from putting points on the board, we might not even need the Hufflepuff win to take home the Cup.”

“Laura, I really wish you cared as much about Transfiguration as you do about Quidditch statistics,” Perry sighed, fixing her hair behind her ears.

“I know, I’m wasting my talents, yada yada…” Laura waved. And then she lowered her voice, “ _But,_ I’m also one of only four people who can do a nonverbal spell as a _fourth_ year. Surely that counts for something in your book, Perr?”

She saw LaF frown, the word _‘four’_ forming on their lips questioningly. Thankfully, Perry was already speaking.

“It counts for plenty. In fact, I’m excited to start working on more serious spellwork. Just _think_ —”

“Hey, hey! Not during Quidditch!” LaF complained.

The teams were striding out onto the field. Laura leaned forward earnestly.

Carmilla looked confident, for once. She had her shoulders squared and her hair pinned up neatly… she wasn’t even scowling, though she was hardly grinning, either.

Laura wondered if that was how _she_ looked, when she strode out onto the pitch before Gryffindor games.

She applauded with the others, as the Ravenclaws and Slytherins shouted the names of team members and waved banners. Laura noted a conspicuous lack of support for Carmilla, and felt a strange twinge of _annoyance_.

She told herself, this time, that she felt this way because someone with her talent deserved to be recognized. No other reason.

And it was perfectly normal to recognize that another girl was pretty. To think their hair was perfect. It didn’t have to mean anything.

This was Carmilla Karnstein, after all.

She couldn’t _let_ it mean anything.

The players took to the air, soaring into their roles. Carmilla launched into hot pursuit of Tim Duranicore, the lead Slytherin Chaser, who had claimed first possession of the Quaffle. He scored easily, and the ball fell into the waiting arms of Huxley. Carmilla dodged after, just a hair too late to be involved.

Huxley missed, and so did the Bludger that went for Duranicore. Slytherin scored again.

And again.

“At least the Seekers look bored,” LaF commented, when the scoreboard racked quickly up to 50-0. They were on their way to a repeat of the Gryffindor match, and Carmilla had still not gained possession of the Quaffle once. “Although perhaps it would be better if they put Ravenclaw out of their misery sooner, rather than later…”

“Yes!” Laura squeaked, jumping in her seat. Huxley had just been grazed by a Bludger—but that was not what she was cheering for. The Quaffle had dropped into Carmilla’s arms, and she was heading straight for the Slytherin goal.

Laura’s hands clenched in her lap, her nails digging half-moons into her palms. _Come on… come on…_

Carmilla angled upward, aimed, and then threw on the brakes and _heaved_.

The Quaffle soared clear through the right hoop, and Rex Marcus looked positively astounded. Laura threw both hands up, cheering with the loudest of the Ravenclaws.

Perry shot her a judgmental, sidelong look, but LaF was too occupied shouting about the foul they believed should have been called on Duranicore, who had made a very rude hand gesture.

Huxley passed to Carmilla, on the next strike. It was the first time he had ever done something of the kind, and he seemed as astonished as the crowd when she sent it soaring through for another ten points.

She was majestic.

Every time she got ahold of the Quaffle, she took it to the hoops. She did not miss even _once_. Marcus was disheveled, by the end of the match, his hair flattened to his forehead, slicked with sweat. The Ravenclaws were beside themselves, jumping atop one another in the stands. They had just begun to chant Carmilla’s name in unison, when a hush swept across the pitch.

It was the sort of hush that only ever meant one thing.

The Seekers were nearly on top of one another, jockeying for position. Even Carmilla stopped to watch, positioned close beside her own Keeper, as both Seekers stretched for the shimmering golden Snitch.

The roar was positively deafening, when Jenna Martin jerked free of the spiraling blue and green blur, waving the Snitch over her head. Ravenclaws Laura did not even know were grabbing her in hugs and clapping her on the back, whooping and throwing up general chaos.

Surely, Carmilla would like Quidditch, now. Laura was already practicing her ‘I told you so,’ in the back of her mind, even as she replayed Carmilla’s best plays (and her widest smiles) in the forefront.

 _Oh, what the hell,_ she thought helplessly, her gaze following the head of perfect—if somewhat windblown—raven curls as Carmilla was borne off the field on the shoulders of her cheering teammates.

It was _definitely_ a crush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For now, I plan to maintain monthly updates on this, so I will see you all in February! Until then, drop me a line here, or on tumblr (jg-firefly). I love all of your thoughts. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. The Long Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla deals with a newfound spotlight. Laura deals with a roller coaster of broken hopes.

_Spring of 1974 (Fourth Year)_

The first time Laura had won a Quidditch match had been in her second year, in a rather blustery game against Hufflepuff. The wind had worked well to her advantage, giving the Quaffle enough rightward lean as it flew at her hoops that she only needed to guard half as much space against the inexperienced Chaser that had been running point for the other team.

Despite the help of luck and circumstance, nothing had dampened her spirits in the aftermath of the victory. When Gryffindor celebrated, they chanted her name along with the rest. Students she did not even know were recapping her better saves, eyes bright with excitement, and first years would approach her in the Great Hall during breaks to ask her for tips on joining the team when they were older.

Being a Quidditch player, Laura learned, was akin to holding a small status of celebrity within the halls of the castle. The attention faded with time, but there was nothing quite like the rush of it, in the moment.

She was not surprised, therefore, that Carmilla was too busy to meet with her, in the weeks following her victory. She had gained a small following of supporters and overly-eager study buddies. First and second years nervously asked for her autograph during meals, and, one night before an Astronomy lesson, Laura eavesdropped on several Hufflepuff fourth years discussing how her moves were reminiscent of a number of retired Chasers from the ‘40s. There was a near-constant stream of _“Carmilla, do you want help with your Transfiguration essay?”_ and _“Carmilla, do you want to borrow my Potions notes?”_

When the days stretched into weeks, and finally into an entire month, though, Laura began to find these moments wearing at her patience. Carmilla had rejected three separate invitations to meet at the pitch, each time with a regret that had begun to feel more mocking than genuine, and on the nights when Laura snuck out to check the field herself, she found it abandoned.

Laura kept her head down, when she found herself in the same room as the other girl. She focused on the lessons, or on her books, and fought the urge to shoot extra glances Carmilla’s way.

She hardly needed further confirmation that Carmilla no longer wanted anything to do with her.  

“Ignore them,” LaF would say, on the occasions when she caught Laura’s shoulders stiffening as inevitable giggles rose from the back corner of the room, “Just because she can actually play, now, doesn’t mean she’s not still a total bitch. And, besides, you’re way better.”

Laura would just shrug or nod, and keep her lips pressed tight.

She did not want to have a deeper conversation about Carmilla Karnstein. Not even a little bit. It seemed that all the snide, angry things she used to say about the girl—mostly to an agreeable LaFontaine—now felt bitter on her tongue, while all of the things she actually wanted to say were like needles, stabbing into her gut.

When she would catch a glimpse of her profile, trapped between the outlines of her eager fans, she hated that her anger faded so quickly into longing: that there was still a pang in her chest at the very sight of her sharp jawline, her thin lips, the gentle fall of her hair over slender shoulders.

As such, when she found herself waiting for a turning staircase alone, one evening in early May, she was not particularly thrilled to discover that she had company. Especially not given that Ravenclaw was due to play Slytherin in two days’ time.

“Hollis?” Carmilla said, and there was a clipped shock to her voice that told Laura she had not been expecting the run-in any more than Laura had.

“Karnstein,” Laura replied with as much cool disinterest as she could muster.

Carmilla was staring, her eyebrows up and her mouth slightly open. She had paused several meters away, and shuffled her feet in place, hands buried in her pockets.

“You—you’re alone.”

“Observational, aren’t you?”

Carmilla recoiled a fraction, eyes widening, “You just… haven’t been at the pitch,” she said.

Laura almost wanted to laugh. Instead, she scraped her palms over the front of her robes and swallowed against the surge of her heartbeat. She did not meet Carmilla’s gaze; she was not about to give away just how frequently she had gone to the pitch to wait for her, even if it was the truth.

“Yeah, well, I found better things to do,” she lied.

The other girl frowned, “Oh.” She teetered, worrying her lower lip, and then glanced up at Laura through her eyelashes, and Laura had to dig her nails into her palms to focus on anything but the rush of heat that went straight to her ears. “I had just… thought I’d see you there.”

The surge of emotion that hit her at the words barely had a chance to resemble hope before it boiled away into anger.

“Why?” she snapped, “Do you need more tutoring? Am I finally useful to you, again?”

Carmilla’s mouth fell open, bewilderment tearing its way through her features, and suddenly Laura could see the girl from the pitch, the girl that had laid out beside her, hair spread free, eyes vulnerable and curious.

“Is that what you think?” Carmilla demanded, her voice thick with shock.

It cut through Laura like a knife of regret.

“No,” she muttered swiftly, her hair falling over her eyes with a shake of her head. “Just… it’s whatever. Never mind.”

Forgetting all about her destination, and the moving staircase that had finally ground into place before them, Laura turned back the way she had come and all but ran from the scene.

This time, she was the one who didn’t look back when Carmilla called her name.

\------

Perry insisted that they miss the final Hogsmeade weekend of the term to prepare for finals. Watching a particular Ravenclaw leave the Great Hall on Saturday morning, trailed by a gaggle of fans, Laura almost missed the proclamation.

“You can’t be serious!” LaFontaine exploded. “We skipped the last one, too. My Zonko’s supply—”

“Is hardly more important than your test scores. There are twelve months until the O.W.L.s, LaFontaine. You can keep scoffing at my timeline, but just you wait. It will be _one_ month to go and you will regret not listening to me.”

LaF sputtered. “Laura, help me out, here!” they demanded.

“Huh?”

The last of Carmilla’s cohorts had just slipped out the doors behind her.

“I’m trying to save our souls, L. Perry wants us to spend the whole weekend in the _library_.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

Carmilla would probably be heading to Hogsmeade. With that giggling parade in tow. A mixture of what felt like heartburn and nausea buffeted through her, tossing her gut and making her scowl.

“That’s a very mature response,” said Perry.

“She’s not being _mature_ , she’s clearly _ill._ Seriously, Laura, you feel okay?”

Laura shrugged, forcing her gaze back onto her friends. Perry had just pushed aside her cleaned plate, while LaFontaine was tearing strips off of the crust on their toast, their eyes clouded with frustration and a dose of actual concern.

“Fine,” she lied. She ignored her untouched breakfast. “Let’s just get to the library now, before all the good spots are taken.”

“They won’t _be_ taken, it’s a _Hogsmeade_ weekend!” LaFontaine griped. Yet, they still trailed Perry to the library, their words more protest than their feet were willing to put up. Laura let the two of them bicker through the corridors, her thoughts still far away.

Quidditch practice had turned grim, with Danny counting down her days at Hogwarts by pushing them to their limits. More than once, a team member had left practice bloody and Laura had a number of bruises on her shoulders from where she’d taken a Quaffle or even a Bludger. She had been fortunate not to need the hospital wing—Melanie Carter had spent the better part of yesterday evening there, having her snapped collarbone put back in place.

Laura missed her solo practices.

She missed the freedom of running her own drills, catching the Quaffle, soaring laps without someone yelling at her about her timing.

She missed the company.

“Oh no,” Perry sighed.

They had arrived at the library, and Laura glanced up only because Perry’s exasperation was a surprise. Were there no seats? Hadn’t LaF just said—but that wasn’t what Perry was responding to.

By the windows, a group of students—most of them first, second, and third years—were crowding about several tables, whispering and giggling behind their hands.

Carmilla was pulling books down from the stacks, her back turned to her admirers.

She hadn’t gone to Hogsmeade, after all.  

“Why must they be so distracting?” Perry muttered as she ushered LaFontaine and Laura into seats at the table closest to the door. She glared in Carmilla’s direction. “Honestly. She’s not even that good.”

“You barely follow Quidditch,” LaFontaine reminded her, “and she _is_ good. That’s the problem.” They glanced at Laura with a frown. Laura yanked her books out of her bag.

As LaFontaine and Perry turned to their studying, arguing in whispers over the importance of History of Magic in their homework timeline, Laura’s gaze strayed away from the notes she was not truly reading.

Carmilla had returned to her table and was blatantly ignoring her followers. She had kicked her feet up on the desk, and her nose was buried deep in a book whose title Laura could not make out from across the room. The spine looked battered, the leather fading.

Before Laura could dart her gaze away, Carmilla’s head lifted. Perfectly wavy tendrils of raven hair tumbled off of her face, and her eyes locked onto Laura as if she had known the other girl was there all along. The startled jolt of her eyebrows up to her hairline was enough to discourage that theory.

Laura couldn’t look away.

Carmilla blinked, and then, darting her stare to Laura’s distracted companions, she rested her book on her knees and held up both hands, raising her fingers.

_Seven?_

Laura cursed her quickening heartbeat. This was a terrible idea; Carmilla most certainly did not like her, and this crush was going to be the death of her if she kept expecting reciprocation and answers where there clearly would never be any.

But, Carmilla’s gaze was soft, and pleading, and she was somehow more painfully beautiful for it.

Laura nodded.

\------

Laura hated herself for going along with this. She had half a mind not to show up—to let Carmilla be the one with all the questions, for once.

All of those thoughts were quashed before they had any real life. For all of her frustration, Laura was not petty.

She stayed late at dinner that night, an open book next to her plate, and waved off her friends when they asked if she was coming up to the Tower with them, insisting that she would be there ‘eventually.’

It wasn’t an outright lie. She _would_ join them.

Eventually.

When Laura arrived at the pitch, Carmilla was already doing lazy laps through the goal hoops.

Her heart was blazing in her chest, her thoughts arguing with themselves in the background just like typical banter from Perry and LaFontaine, but Laura tuned out everything except the weight of her broomstick and the unexpected warmth of the evening breeze on her face.

She rose into the sky.

At her interruption, Carmilla pulled to an abrupt halt, hovering in place just far enough away that she did not feel comfortable starting a conversation. The other girl seemed to be regarding her, her hesitation unnatural, and they both glanced towards the stands at the same time.

Laura’s laugh did not quite part her lips, but it tickled in her throat and curved her expression into a smile. She beat Carmilla, though they were not racing, and chose to stand with her arms draped over the edge rather than claiming a seat as she had last time.

Carmilla landed lightly beside her, coming up to lean against the railing at her side.

She didn’t say anything, and Laura felt the tremors of long-standing agitation stirring in spite of the relief that still circled her.

Carmilla was actually here. She had set the time, without prompting, and was now standing very, very close to her.

“They’re driving me crazy,” the other girl said, out of nowhere.

Laura let her gaze dart to the side, taking in the drawn lines of Carmilla’s pale profile before she cleared her throat to ask, “Who?”

Shaking her head, Carmilla ground out, “My _fan club_.”

“Oh.”

A strong wind buffeted through the pitch, tugging at Laura’s hair such that she had to tuck it back behind her ears to see properly. Carmilla merely looked like a model, of course, her hair fluttering out behind her serenely.

Laura’s pulse skipped, her chest all the way up to the tips of her ears going warm. Her fingers tingled as if they had gone to sleep, and she turned to stare down at the ground, far beneath them.

“I wanted to thank you,” said Carmilla. The words were faint, whispered more towards her feet than to Laura’s face.

“Um. For… what?”

Carmilla furrowed her brow. She raised one hand off the railing, letting it gesture vaguely at the field in front of them. “This. You—you were at the matches, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was there.” Laura couldn’t think of a single reason she would miss _any_ Quidditch match, regardless of who was playing. And she had certainly been there on Saturday, when Ravenclaw wiped the floor with Hufflepuff.

Silence descended again. Carmilla, who was always so still, so poised, was picking at her nails, her foot scuffing against the railing.

“So you are mad at me.” Her voice was small, resigned, and wholly un-Carmilla-like. It was jarring.  

“What? No. I’m not mad at you,” Laura stammered.

It wasn’t entirely true, but, at the moment? Inches from brushing shoulders, Carmilla’s expression tight and vulnerable? Laura had never felt further from anger.

“You’ve been avoiding me ever since that Hufflepuff match,” Carmilla accused. “And then you practically yelled at me last week. I haven’t been able to get away in the evenings, so I’ve been trying to catch you after our classes, or in the Great Hall, but you’re always with the _gingers_. And they hate me more than you do, so I didn’t—”

“I don’t hate you, Carmilla,” Laura’s throat felt tight, horror rising from some deep recess within her. “Of _course_ I don’t hate you. I mean… I couldn’t. I couldn’t hate you.”

The words were escaping faster than she could think them over. She sputtered to a halt, her breaths uneven. Her cheeks were flushed.

For some crazy, stupid reason, she couldn’t stop looking at Carmilla.

And she kept hearing her last words, as if they had been set on repeat in her brain, declaring over and over that Carmilla had tried to see her. That Carmilla had _wanted_ to see her.

“Okay,” the other girl agreed slowly. “You don’t hate me.”

Her dark eyes were impossible to read. Laura swallowed hard. Her mouth was _so_ dry, and there was a shadow across Carmilla’s face, lining up with the perfect arc of her jaw…

“I’m glad you don’t like them,” said Laura. “The fans, I mean.” She shrugged. “I thought you… well, I just thought you were enjoying it.”

Carmilla’s scoff was almost a laugh, her voice coarse, “Laura, I don’t think I’ve ever been _further_ from enjoying myself.”

She looked away once the words were out, and there was a shrug rising in her shoulders that Laura suspected had nothing to do with the cold, but that wasn’t what she was caught up on.

Carmilla had rasped out her first name, had let it fall as easily off of her lips as if she had used it a hundred times before. Laura had been so used to the call of _Hollis_ , to the way Carmilla had turned the surname from a near-slur into a murmur, that she could not say she had given pause to consider the alternative… or the effect it would have on her.

If her ears weren’t pink before, they were certainly edging on crimson, now. She turned quickly, tugging at her hair so it fell to cover the side of her face, and stared hard out across the pitch.

“What about Quidditch?” she asked, finally, clearing her throat. She wondered if she was imagining Carmilla’s tension beside her. “How do you feel about Quidditch, now?”

“I’d say Quidditch is a ten,” Carmilla murmured. When Laura dared turn towards her, she found Carmilla already staring back.

There was no way she was imagining the other girl’s smile.

It slipped, though, her expression darkening, and a muscle jumped in her throat as she sucked her lower lip into her mouth and blew a breath out of her nose.

“Laura, what you said, last week, about my reasons for asking you here—”

“I overreacted,” she said hurriedly. Her heart was racing, pounding loud in her ears. It seemed to be beating out a rhythm of questions, of things that Carmilla might say next, if Laura did not stop her. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Carmilla’s lower lip was shiny, where she had been rolling it between her teeth. There was an uncertainty in her dark gaze, and Laura was as desperate for her to continue as she was afraid of just that.

Carmilla, after a moment’s hesitation, murmured a quiet, “Okay.”

And that was it. Laura had sabotaged her only chance to get confirmation, to know for sure that Carmilla wanted to see her for _her_.

Before she could process the disappointment, her brain was jumping twelve steps ahead, and she was blurting, “We should keep in touch this summer,” without thinking.

She felt her own eyes widen, matching Carmilla’s.

“I mean, if you want to. I usually write, to like, Perry and LaF, which is easy, because they live next-door to each other, so it’s really like writing to one person and they just share the letter… but sometimes I write to Danny, too, so it’s not like I’m… I mean I’m not opposed to writing multiple letters.”

Carmilla still hadn’t answered.

“I like to write,” Laura finished lamely.

Carmilla ran a finger along an old, worn gash in the railing. “And _talk_ ,” she said. It could have been condescending, but there was a lilt to the word, and a curl at the edge of her lips. “I just… don’t usually get mail.”

Laura nodded. “Right. If you don’t want—I mean it was just a thought, like, pen-friends, or… or whatever.”

There was no way Carmilla didn’t notice the blush sweeping across her features.

She shouldn’t have asked. It had been a stupid idea.

“I didn’t say no,” said Carmilla. Her gaze was gentle, contemplative. Laura’s eyes darted down, and then quickly back up.

She swallowed again.

Did Carmilla notice _that?_

The other girl turned away, staring calmly up at the stars that were beginning to peek out of the velvety sky. It had gotten very dark.

“We should probably get back.”

Laura had been thinking the same thing, but there was something about Carmilla suggesting it—Carmilla being the one to urge the departure, that pulled down on Laura’s gut like an unwelcome anchor. It reminded her of the past weeks, and all the times Carmilla had said no.

“Right,” she agreed too quickly. “Filch.”

“And you have that match in a few days.”

Laura wished she could believe Carmilla’s hesitation was the same as her own—was not just awkwardness or tiredness or concern for being caught on the grounds after hours—but she knew that was naïve.

They pulled away from the railing together, and made the journey back to the castle in silence.

\------

Laura let herself slip again.

From the final night together on the pitch until the last Saturday of the term, she let herself catch Carmilla’s eye in class, let herself smile back without expecting another meeting. Time was short, and exams were stressful, and she would send an owl in the first week of vacation anyway.

She’d open with something casual. Maybe try to get Carmilla interested in the Harpies. There were several old Quidditch magazines in her closet back home that she could send.

But then it was the morning of the final Quidditch match—Hufflepuff versus Gryffindor—and Laura burst into the old classroom where she, Perry, and LaF had taught themselves nonverbal spells.

They had not used the space in weeks; not with the library taking up most of their time in preparation for exams. Perry had become particularly irate, the night before, because she did not know the name of the shielding spell’s inventor. LaF had been carefully force-feeding her tea in the aftermath, gently reminding her that no one actually knew who had invented the spell, and therefore she wasn’t _supposed_ to know a name.

Breakfast was nearly wrapped up, down in the Great Hall, and Laura was expected down at the pitch any minute, but Perry had already been gone from her bed when LaF had shaken Laura awake, and they had been on a rather frantic search ever since—urged on mostly by LaF’s dramatic insistence that Perry might be ‘lying dead under a pile of books somewhere.’

Laura was fairly certain the other girl was just holed up in some private nook, determined to avoid the match and make use of the hours of peace it provided in the castle… but at this point she did not dare argue with LaFontaine.

It seemed everyone’s nerves were shot this time of year, not just Perry’s.

Perry’s name died on her lips, though, as she skidded to a halt just inside the classroom.

Carmilla jumped, putting a solid distance between herself and the other student in the room— _Remus Lupin_.

He flushed a dark red. Laura’s gaze darted back and forth between them, her mouth working and no sound coming out.

Of all the people she would have expected to walk in on, these were the last two she would imagine finding alone together.

In the nearly empty castle.

Looking highly embarrassed.

Laura’s face flushed, too, and suddenly she found the pattern on the ceiling _incredibly_ interesting.

“I—I’m sorry. I should… I’m gonna go,” she finally stammered.

“Laura!”

She didn’t want to be followed, but that didn’t stop Carmilla. Laura made it around only the first corner before the other girl caught her by the elbow, yanking her to a halt. She spun, jerking her arm free, and Carmilla hopped back a pace as if just realizing what she had done. Her eyes were very wide.

“If you want to tell me to pretend I didn’t see anything,” Laura began breathlessly, “then you don’t have to worry. I should have knocked. I won’t—I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Carmilla shook her head. “No, Laura, I swear… it—it’s not what it _looked_ like.”

“It’s fine,” Laura bit out. She was already backing away. “It… it doesn’t matter.”

“Laura!”

She was already gone.

She didn’t stop until she had made it to the Entrance Hall and found herself surrounded by jovial students rushing on their way to the pitch.

Her head was spinning. She pressed herself up against a bannister to let a group of students pass, but none of them paid her any mind, the mixture of Hufflepuffs and Slytherins eagerly discussing today’s match without another care in the world.

“Hey, Laura!” Perry called brightly.

Because of course she would be here, right when Laura had given up looking. Right after she had just seen something she could never un-see.

The other girl was on the stairs, fighting the flow of traffic with her arms full of books.

“Perr!” Laura said. She plastered on a smile, struggling to catch her breath, and hoped her face wasn’t still red. “Did LaF find you?”

She was picturing it again: Carmilla jumping away from Remus. His face flushing.

“Oh. Well. _Yes…_ they were rather… distressed.”

Perry looked away, cleared her throat, and adjusted her grip on her books. It was clear that her thoughts were too far away to notice anything odd about her friend. Laura’s heart was still racing, even as she schooled her expression and put together a response.

“I’d say LaF was pretty eager for you to come to the game. And, from the looks of it… they did not win that one.”

“Ah. No. I’m sorry, Laura, and I do hope you _win_ , of course, but I just have so much studying to do…”

“Oh, Perry, you’re fine!” It was no secret that Perry really did not gain any enjoyment from Quidditch—not the way she or LaF did. That, and Laura needed this conversation to end sooner, rather than later. “Really. Go study. Have fun.”

Perry lit up. “I will. And you… catch that ball and… and _stop_ it.”

Laura had finally caught her breath, and managed to chuckle. “Will do.”

She was late, now, and she knew it. The grounds flew by in a blur as she ran full-pelt down to the pitch. She was unsurprised, if not a bit flustered, when Danny towered over her the moment she slipped into the Gryffindor changing rooms.

“Where have you _been?”_

“I was… held up.”

“What could be more important than this match?” Danny demanded. Her nostrils were flaring, her hair sticking up at odd angles.

Laura swallowed. “Nothing, Danny. I’m sorry.”

Right now, it did not matter what Carmilla was doing with Remus. Danny needed her—needed all of them—to do this one last thing for her. This was her last Hogwarts Quidditch match, after all. The whole of the team had been walking on eggshells around her for weeks, obeying her every whim without question.

The captain did not give her much time to change. Laura was still struggling into her gear when Danny ordered them all to gather around. She hobbled into the circle, trying to tie up the last of her laces while still appearing attentive.

“Alright, Gryffindors. This will be the most important game of your _lives_. This determines everything. We are standing up for the very honor of our House. Gryffindor needs this. You need this. _I need this_.”

James Potter caught Laura’s eye, making a face by scrunching his eyebrows and puffing out his cheeks. She looked away quickly, before she was tempted to laugh. Damn Potter. He must have a death wish.

“When we win this,” Danny was saying, “we will be _heroes_. No one will forget this season. After all, this is the same team that tore Ravenclaw down from glory after their greatest year in House history. Together, we’re going to make sure they _never have another one_.”

Laura bit her lip. That was a tad dramatic… even for Danny Lawrence.

“If we’re going to make this happen, we need a synchronized effort. We need to be a _machine_. This is the first time Gryffindor has held a steady lead since my second year. It was stolen from us then, but it _won’t_ be stolen from us now. Hufflepuff’s got weak Keeping. Potter, Copeland! We’re going to take full advantage. Johnson, you find that Snitch and catch it as _fast as you can_. I don’t want us leaving anything to chance. Pearce, Carter… I want you on top of Kirsch the _whole_ game. Do not let him rest even for a second. I don’t want him to catch so much as a glimpse of that Snitch.”

“To clarify,” Potter piped up, “You don’t actually want them to _maim_ your boyfriend… right?”

Danny glared. “Just focus on the Quaffle, Potter.”

She reached her hand forward, and the team joined her, chanting “Gryffindor!” as they broke apart.

It was a long walk out onto the pitch. Danny held her head up high at the front of the pack, but Laura could see the way her hands clenched at her sides to keep them from trembling. The stands erupted into cheers the moment their feet hit the grass, and, while Laura had grown used to having the eyes of the school upon her, this time felt _different_.

Even Potter looked grim, his jovial humor in the changing rooms lost now that they were moments away from kicking off. She caught him glimpse apprehensively at Danny, just before they came to a halt facing the Hufflepuffs.

She thought back to what Danny said to her, after the holidays. How she was muggleborn, too… how she was afraid of what came after Hogwarts.

Laura wanted desperately to give this win to her, and she knew the others felt the same. She had been their captain for three years—the whole of Laura’s time on the Gryffindor team. She couldn’t imagine what Hogwarts would be like without her.

“I want a good, clean game,” Madam Hooch snapped, the Quaffle balanced on her fingertips. “Shake hands, now, you two.”

Danny stepped forward to meet Kirsch. He grinned at her, his eyes bright with their usual enthusiasm. Danny gave him a firm handshake, but offered no sign of affection. Her face was a mask. Had Laura not witnessed the two of them snogging in a corridor after the Start-of-Term Feast, and again only a few nights ago, she’d have never known they were dating—though it had always been fairly clear that _one_ of them was interested.

Kirsch had been almost as bad as Potter. Except, of course, that Kirsch had actually stood a _chance_ , whereas Potter was kidding himself, in the same way that Sirius Black was when he flirted with _her_.

Well… not _quite_ the same way.

The whistle sounded, and all of Laura’s reflecting cascaded away, her world narrowing to _right now_. The air had a morning chill to it, as it bit at her cheeks on her way to the Gryffindor goal posts.

She resisted the urge to let her gaze sweep the crowd once she was in position, afraid that her eyes would betray her and not stop when they located LaF. They might be tempted to stray where they did not belong, to places such as the Ravenclaw section.

There was already a vicious scuffle going on for control of the Quaffle. Laura had sped past it on her mission to protect the goals, but now she saw that the Bludgers were actively in play, with both Hufflepuff Beaters looping about the mass of Chasers as the Quaffle tumbled between grasps. Madam Hooch hovered close by, her whistle glinting warningly in her hand. Laura could not even see the Seekers, who must have already vanished to the distant corners of the pitch to begin their individual searches.

Danny came out triumphant, but Madam Hooch blew her whistle before the scuffle could disperse. Laura cringed as the foul was called on the Gryffindor Captain for ramming her elbow into the eye on an opposing Chaser. Third year Zachary Godby was pulled out for a quick medical enchantment, and the Hufflepuff back-up Chaser flew uncertainly onto the field.

Laura saved the penalty shot, and Danny wasted no time in claiming the Quaffle again. Laura bit her lip as she watched the other girl soar downfield, lobbing her shot at the right post, only for Easley to kick it clear.

Verner came up with it, barrel-rolling past Potter to put himself in the lead towards the Gryffindor goal.

Laura steeled herself, a grim smile working at the corners of her lips. _This_ was what she needed right now. The greatest distraction in the world. Quidditch was a thrill—it was the wind whipping against your face with the enemy flying at you head-on, _knowing_ you were going to best them.

The Quaffle snapped into her gloves as if magnetized, and the _thump_ it made was satisfying. She vaulted it away without having to even think about it, confident that Potter would arch up to meet it with their usual synchronicity. He was gone in a flash, Danny taking up the guard beside him and claiming the brunt of the ramming from Godby, who had apparently been restored to duty while Laura had been distracted by the last play.

Kirsch looped by overhead, cruising easily with his neck craned forward. Distantly, Laura could make out his scarlet twin, making the rounds behind the Hufflepuff posts. No sign of the Snitch yet, Laura thought, and she wasn’t sure if she were relieved or disappointed.

The idea of the Snitch cropping up, now—except, under Kirsch’s nose instead of Johnson’s—made her stomach churn unpleasantly. The last thing she wanted was to live through another glum end-of-term, especially knowing she would be saying a final farewell to Danny when it was all over.

Potter scored, and Laura allowed herself a brief moment of celebration with the crowd before she geared up to block the next Hufflepuff shot. She was spared the need by another foul. Verner had seized the tail of Potter’s broom while he was attempting to dislodge the Quaffle from Godby.

While Madam Hooch was making the announcement, Laura’s eyes got the best of her. She hadn’t even been looking—or at least told herself that she had not—but somehow her gaze had landed on the Ravenclaw section, and she had picked out Carmilla amidst the masses within seconds.

It really wasn’t difficult. She was exceptionally pale, after all.

She was sitting with the rest of the Ravenclaw team, which was new. Normally, Carmilla sat alone. Of course, Laura had to remind herself, Carmilla had earned herself glory in recent weeks. She was the _star_ now.

Still, it was a relief to find her amongst the Ravenclaws, and not grouped in with her Slytherin pals. Or, worse… with certain Gryffindors.  

Just like that, it played through her mind, again.

She should not have let it. The Quaffle soared past her, completely unobstructed, and when she dove in a belated attempt to retrieve it, she discovered that Verner had beaten her to the punch. She only barely made it back to the hoops in time to block the second goal, and even then it was a clumsy return that Danny nearly missed.

Though the redhead did not yell anything, Laura could _sense_ the displeasure radiating off of her as she zoomed away.

Laura swallowed, watching the distant play as Danny managed to make back the points Laura had just lost them. Even as she tightened her grip on her Cleansweep, though, eyes focused on Godby, she was hearing Carmilla’s attempted apology in the corridor.

She had been so foolish. They had not really spoken in _weeks_. The other night at the pitch had clearly been nothing more than Carmilla’s conscience finally getting the best of her. She had thanked Laura, after all. Maybe that had been the whole point.

Laura’s own words shot back at her like stinging curses. She had misinterpreted everything. She had asked Carmilla to _write to her_.

And the whole time…

Carmilla had never cared about her.

(She had been right, not to let Carmilla finish her explanations.)

There were tears building in her eyes, and Laura could not bring herself to blink them away. She had forgotten about the pitch, forgotten about the game, forgotten about how _important_ this was—how much Danny would kill her if she missed another goal.

She was staring distantly at the north quarter of the pitch, remembering the way the sky had been clear that first evening when she and Carmilla sat there, so close that Laura had been afraid to breathe, to make any sudden moves.

She did not hear the cries from the crowd, though LaF would later tell her that everyone was on their feet. She did not see Danny streaking up the pitch, or Potter cutting a sharp angle to head straight for her.

She also did not see the Bludger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me for the inaccuracy of my Hogwarts timelines for Quidditch matches. Let's just pretend schedules were a little more creative in the '70s, shall we?
> 
> Share your thoughts here, or drop me a line at jg-firefly on tumblr :)


	8. Three Badges and a Feud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A summer interlude.

_Summer of 1974 (Post-Fourth Year)_

Someone was shouting. Laura groaned, reaching to tug the blankets back up over her head, but found nothing. Slowly, she cracked open her eyes and peered around the empty room. Her covers had slid off the side of the bed, and were crumpled on the floor.

The shouting was coming from downstairs, and, as Laura sat up,  she recognized the voices.

LaFontaine and Perry were having another row.

This had become somewhat of a _thing_ , in the past weeks. Perry was panicking over the upcoming schoolyear, insisting that LaF and Laura quiz her on O.W.L. topics in the middle of perfectly good Quidditch weather. LaF, unfortunately, had chosen to combat Perry’s panic by telling her she was being ‘absurd.’

The result was that Laura had just spent two weeks delivering messages between the two while they were not talking, and feeling oddly like a third wheel when they _were_. To top it off, every minute that LaF spent at their own house and away from them, Perry hovered over Laura and peppered her with a million questions about whether she was ‘having a good enough time’ or if she ‘needed more snacks.’

Grumbling to herself, Laura rolled out of bed, tugged on a robe, and padded down the winding staircase to the kitchen. There was a single Hogwarts letter open on the table—a shiny Prefect’s badge laid atop it. The pair paused mid-sentence, practically nose-to-nose, as they recognized that they were no longer alone.

“Oh! Laura. Good morning,” Perry breezed, stepping back and smoothing down the front of her blouse. She smiled. “How did you sleep?”

Laura raised an eyebrow, glancing between them in disbelief. LaFontaine was suddenly very interested in the ceiling beams, shuffling their feet.

“Great,” she said finally, her voice flat. “I slept _great_.”

Perry missed the sarcasm—or chose to ignore it, “Excellent! There are some muffins on the counter—mum baked them this morning before she went off to work. They’re oatmeal cranberry, which I know is your favorite—”

“Okay, seriously?” Laura interrupted. She snatched up the Prefect’s badge and held it out accusingly, “Are we not going to talk about this? Perry, you’ve been _dying_ to be a Prefect since we were first years, and I wake up to find you two fighting about something that’s been set in stone for _years_ —”

“It wasn’t set in—” LaF cut in hotly, at the same time as Perry cried, “It’s not mine!”

Laura blinked, and, eyes widening, focused her attention back on LaF. They were turning an increasingly darker shade of red with every passing second.

“Hey, I didn’t _ask_ for it, okay! But _she’s_ already had plenty to say about how I clearly don’t deserve it!”

“Stop putting words in my mouth, LaFontaine! That was _not_ —”

“It was the intention of what you—”

“—all I meant was that I have worked hard for this, while you—”

“—so clearly you think I’m not worthy just because I don’t study as much—”

“GUYS!” Laura yelled. They both fell silent, seething. Laura picked up the letter as though afraid it might bite her, and gave it a quick read-through.

It was fairly standard.

_LaFontaine, you have been chosen by your head of house… as you know, two fifth years are selected to be role models to their peers… these added responsibilities should not be taken lightly…_

Yada yada.

When Laura looked up, they were glaring at each other again. She sighed heavily and set both the badge and the letter back where she had found them.

“Alright. I am… _surprised_. But, McGonagall must, y’know, have had a _reason_ …”

“Yeah. Maybe she thinks Perry isn’t involved enough. It’s hard to be a role model when you spend all of your time hiding in the corner of the library where no one can find you.”

Perry let out a little scoff. “As if brewing dangerous concoctions in one’s dorm room is _role model_ behavior. Or sneaking out after hours to help another student break into the Quidditch pitch.”

“You don’t have to _break in_ , Perr! They don’t lock up the _giant field_. You’d know that if you ever bothered to go to the games—y’know, the ones where your best friend is playing? _I’m_ supportive of my Housemates!”

“Again, with Quidditch! Why is a sport more important than everything else? We don’t go to Hogwarts just for Quidditch, you know, but if anyone listened to you and Laura, they’d think broomsticks were more important than exams! And it’s _dangerous!_ Look what happened last year!”

“How about we just leave me out of this one?” Laura piped up. Neither of them acknowledged her.

“Well, if you had it your way, there would be poor little first years crying in the corridors after every class, panicked about their grades with absolutely no fun at all to break up all the studying! Oh! And they’d all be tied up in bubble-wrap!”

“Well… well, if you had it _your_ way, there wouldn’t _be_ any studying!”

“Maybe there won’t be. Maybe I’ll be the mandatory-fun-Prefect.”

“That’s not a thing!”

“I could make it a thing! After all, _I’m_ the one that’s a Prefect!”

They both sputtered, jumping back as a bird soared between them, landing somewhat ungracefully on the table and knocking aside the letter and badge. A smattering of feathers shed onto the floor.

The unfamiliar screech owl was wind-ruffled but bright eyed, and he held out his leg with pride, giving a little hoot. Laura untied the letter quickly, her fingers trembling.

_It couldn’t be…_

It wasn’t.

The letter was sealed neatly with the Hogwarts crest, and the adrenaline that had momentarily surged through her left just as quickly, taking the rest of her energy with it. She broke the seal methodically, dropping into a chair at the small kitchen table.

LaF had already received her Hogwarts letter that morning. Laura knew she shouldn’t be surprised that this was her own.

It wasn’t like she should be expecting mail from anyone else.

She didn’t get a chance to read the parchment that she pulled free, because there was a metallic clatter, and something shiny rolled up against her bare foot.

The kitchen went very, very still, three sets of eyes locked upon the small object. Hands shaking slightly, Laura reached for it. She could practically feel Perry’s stare boring into her—and then she swallowed and held the badge out to show it for what it was: there was no shiny ‘P’ emblazoned upon it. Instead, there was a golden ‘C.’

LaF’s serious expression immediately fell away into cheer, and Perry’s shoulders released their tension.

“I knew it!” LaFontaine beamed. “I _knew_ Danny would pick you to take over! And of course McGonagall approved… Oh, this is great! You’ll get to make the practice schedules, now, and actually put in place all those formations you’ve been doodling on your notes over the years… Oh, we are so going to _crush_ the other teams…”

Laura nodded vaguely. Her ears were ringing slightly, her fingers trembling around the metal pin. She was still staring at it, still trying to come to grips with the reality before her.

She didn’t deserve it. No matter what LaF said, or what Danny had told her in the Hospital Wing, there was no one more responsible for Gryffindor losing the Quidditch Cup than she was.

They had fallen miserably, after she was taken off the pitch. Hufflepuff had scored half a dozen times on their back-up—who was really more of a Beater than he was a Keeper—and even with Danny and Potter keeping the points close, it didn’t matter when Kirsch came up with the Snitch. They had lost too much of their lead.

All of this she was told from a hospital bed, the team gathered around in their muddy robes. Laura had been quiet, incapable of words as she replayed the last moments of her memory on the pitch over and over. She had not been thinking about Quidditch, had not been focused on the game.

She had deserved the Bludger, but Gryffindor had not deserved the loss. _Danny_ hadn’t deserved the loss.

How could she have still picked her, after all of that? After Laura pulled her aside on the platform and gushed as much of the truth as she could bear?

Danny might have said it did not matter, but Laura had been certain it was a lie. 

A second owl swooped into the room, pulling Laura from her thoughts as it landed smoothly on the counter and offered its letter to Perry. She stared at it a long moment, eyes wide. The smile slipped off of LaF’s face.

Perry took an ungodly amount of time to pry the letter open. Laura’s pulse was jumping, her teeth digging into the inside of her lower lip.

Perry pulled the papers free… and no badge tumbled out.

For the briefest moment, Laura’s heart sank, her thoughts flashing forward. She visualized a year of discontent and feuding. Trying desperately to stay friends with the both of them while they hurled insults at one another. Attending Quidditch games without Perry. Studying without LaF. Passing on Perry’s notes to LaF in secret. Getting called out for it. Losing the both of them.

And then Perry reached into the envelope and came out with a shiny badge clutched in her fingers.

Laura’s legs melted like jelly. “Yes!” she yelped, bounding forward to throw her arms around the other girl. Perry was stiff, though, and didn’t return the embrace. Over Laura’s shoulder, she was focusing on LaF.

LaF said nothing.

“This is great,” Laura insisted, as if saying it was so would _make_ them share the sentiment. Neither of them looked at her. She cleared her throat, “Come on, guys. You’re _both_ Prefects. See? No problem.”

She was smiling too widely.

“Laura,” LaF said tersely, “If _you_ want to hang out, then _you_ are more than welcome to come over whenever _you_ like.”

With one last glare at Perry, they stormed out the backdoor.

“Well,” Perry sniffed, setting her badge and letter on the counter, “I’m going to go and finish my chores.”

Laura watched her leave, her mouth hanging slightly open, and then she was left standing alone in the middle of the other girl’s kitchen.

\------

“Didn’t your dad just send a letter yesterday?” Perry asked.

She was straightening the blankets on Laura’s bed in the guest room—a habit Laura had been unable to break her from over the course of the last seven weeks.

Laura shrugged. “Yeah.”

“So why are you waiting for an owl?” Perry asked. She smoothed the wrinkles from the top of the bed, nodded at it approvingly, and then turned to Laura expectantly.

“I’m not.” It was a lie. Laura stood, brushing her hair back self-consciously. “It’s just… nice out.”

“If you want to go over to LaFontaine’s place, no one is stopping you,” Perry said. Her voice was higher than normal. “I thought we might bake some brownies… but I understand that you have duties as Quidditch Captain, and you might need to… plan strategies, or something.”

One of the few bright spots of the summer—and a beacon of hope for the upcoming year—was that Perry seemed to have gained some level of respect for Laura’s Quidditch playing. It was a rapid swing, given that she had spent the beginning of the summer raving about the ‘horrors’ of Laura’s favorite sport.

Now, though, with the Captain’s badge sitting judgingly on Laura’s dresser, Perry’s tune had turned sunny and optimistic. She regularly cited statistics from her reading about the number of successful Ministry officials—and Ministers themselves—who had served as Quidditch Captains during their time at Hogwarts. It was an ‘important leadership experience,’ she insisted, and had tried—more than once—to engage Laura in discussions on how to manage her ‘underlings.’

Laura accepted these conversations as a part of being Perry’s friend, though she found herself nodding along without really listening, these days.

Her dad _was_ the only one that sent letters, so it wasn’t surprising, really, that Perry would make the assumption. Still, there was a part of her that kept hoping a different owl would appear at the window.

She had written three letters, herself. She had sent none of them, tossing them each in the fireplace shortly after they were completed.

There was a line of desperation that she was not willing to cross.

“Brownies sound excellent,” she said.

Mr. and Mrs. Perry were sitting in the living room, when the girls came down the stairs. They were watching the muggle news on their television set, its rabbit ears conspicuously missing and its signal transmitting across some magical frequency that gave them access to international channels. When Laura had first arrived, she had been fascinated—first by the magical enhancements, and then by the very presence of muggle technology in a wizarding household.

LaF, whose household operated similarly, had been quick to explain that Purebloods were the only ones who really shunned muggle technology as a whole. Both of their families were a hodge-podge of muggleborns and wizards who had been dubbed ‘blood-traitors,’ and thus there was a healthy dose of the two worlds.

Mr. LaFontaine, who had grown up in a Pureblood household, had a deep fascination—and respect—for muggle sports. He collected American baseball cards, and watched British football religiously. Mrs. LaFontaine still took muggle photographs with her antique camera, and LaF’s muggle grandparents were a frequent fixture at the cottage.

Meanwhile, Mr. Perry worked at a wizard accounting firm in the muggle currency department, while Mrs. Perry did record-keeping for the Ministry’s Department of Muggleborn Location and Notification. (She had proudly informed Laura that she had been the one to stamp the letter that went out to her, when she turned eleven.)

“Lola, Laura! There you girls are,” Mr. Perry boomed cheerfully, raising his coffee mug. “We were just talking about you. Truman popped in—” he gestured at the fireplace “—and we made plans to head into Diagon Alley tomorrow. Figured you kids would all want to do your shopping together.”

Perry’s smiled was prim, and forced. “Oh, perfect. Sounds lovely. We were just going to do some baking—do you mind if we use the kitchen, Mum?”

“Of course not, dear.”

Perry hurried them from the room. In the kitchen, she tossed Laura an apron without a word, tying hers on briskly. She kept her back to Laura as she rifled through the cabinets, extracting ingredients.

“Can you get out the eggs?” she asked, without turning around. She had pulled out five different sized mixing bowls.

Laura paused with her hand hovering over the refrigerator handle. _‘No,’_ she wanted to say. _‘No, let’s talk about what the hell is happening with you and LaF.’_

“Laura?” Perry hummed.

She opened the fridge, got out the egg carton, and set it next to Perry.

 _Coward_ , she thought to herself.

\------

Diagon Alley was bustling with students. All around them, kids young and old were carrying stacks of books and wearing their house colors in muggle t-shirts or in new robes. First years were trailing their parents with looks of wonder (or panic), and those without supervision were stocking up on candy and joke shop products.

By comparison, the moment the adults had left them to their own devices, Perry and LaFontaine had split off without a word, leaving Laura to make an entirely unfair decision.

She had followed LaF, solely because they walked slower.

“I bet Perry is buying textbooks for every class, even the ones she hasn’t somehow crammed into her schedule. Did you know she’s taking Arithmancy? And Muggle Studies? _And_ Ancient Runes? I mean, it’s ridiculous. She can’t possibly use all of that, and who’s she trying to show off for, anyway?”

Laura paused to look in the window of the Quidditch supply shop, eyes roving over the newest Shooting Star model.

“I don’t think she’s trying to ‘show off,’” she said, studying the price tags with a scowl. Even the newest _gloves_ were more than all of her savings combined.

“Well, she’s going to take all of these classes, and then she’s going to be insufferable, studying at all hours, complaining that _we_ aren’t working hard enough. Except _we_ aren’t choosing to make ourselves miserable. We want to have lives!”

“Uh-huh,” Laura muttered. They had traveled past the storefront, now, and were in front of the pet store.

“I’ve always wanted a rat…” LaF muttered.

Laura heaved a heavy sigh. “Let me guess, because it would freak Perry out if you kept it in our dorm?”

LaF made a face, shrugging.

“Can we maybe just… do our shopping and talk about something _other_ than Perry?”

“Karnstein,” LaF declared.

Laura’s ears went pink. “W-what?”

“Karnstein,” LaF repeated more urgently, pointing as they stuck a hand out to stop Laura’s forward progress.

It took a moment for Laura’s breathing to return to normal, as she caught sight of Carmilla across the street, slipping into the secondhand robes store. Her hair was longer, now. It fell in dark curls down her back, cascading in waves that seemed to shimmer in the early morning sunlight. She was wearing muggle clothes—torn jeans and a tight grey tank top with faded, unreadable lettering across the chest.

“Close call,” LaF was saying, starting to head up the street again. They paused, frowning back at Laura when she did not immediately move. She was still staring at the door where Carmilla had disappeared. “You coming?”

She shook herself and nodded, forcing her feet forward.

“The last thing we need is a run-in _here_ ,” said LaF, “Who knows what she might try to do.”

They had reached the Apothecary, and LaF led the way inside, digging their tattered, folded copy of the school supplies list from their pocket.

“What do you mean?” Laura asked, her focus more intently upon her friend than on the container of newt eyes, which had all turned to follow their progress through the front of the store.

“I mean after the Hufflepuff match. In the Hospital Wing.”

Laura raised an eyebrow, giving her head a little shake.

LaF paled a little. “Oh, holy shit. You don’t know, do you? I was _sure_ Perry would have told you. She’s been convinced for months that Karnstein was trying to do you in, and then you nearly die on us—”

“I didn’t—” Laura started to argue, but then changed course. “What did Perry think Carm— _Karnstein_ was trying to do, exactly? I mean, you guys don’t think she had anything to do with the Bludger, right? Everyone agreed that was all Hufflepuff, and even _they_ apologized…”

“Oh, for sure—and I expect you to thrash Warner for it, this year, too—but that wasn’t the thing. It was _after_ the match. They took you off the field, after you fell, and then they went on with the match and all—after Dumbledore announced you weren’t dead, which was a pretty big concern for a minute there—but a handful of us left to follow you to the castle. A lot of the Gryffindors came along. I found Perry in the library, filled her in, and we rushed up to the Hospital Wing.”

They ducked under a rack of bat wings, and Laura followed suit, accepting the proffered bag of spider legs that LaF had measured for her while they were talking.

“You were conscious, by then—Madam Pomfrey had already cast some charms on you and made you drink something nasty—but you were still pretty out of it. Confused and all. Anyway, _Karnstein_ was there, arguing with Madam Pomfrey about some spell. She was trying to get access to you, which Madam Pomfrey was having none of. Of course, this meant she wouldn’t let _us_ see you, either, but the minute Karnstein spotted us she fled the scene.”

“She wanted… to see me?” Laura said, pronouncing each word slowly, gears turning in her head. 

“To use some spell on you,” LaF corrected with a nod. “She had her wand out and everything. Honestly, it looked like she wanted to hex Madam Pomfrey, before she realized she had an audience. Can you imagine?”

“Yeah. Crazy,” Laura mumbled, frowning.

Her mind was elsewhere, wondering if Carmilla was still in the secondhand robes shop across the Alley. And was she here alone? She must be.

“Earth to Laura,” LaF said. Laura jumped, turning to find that her friend had shifted several racks down, and was staring at her pointedly. “You okay, Hollis?”

“Fine. Sorry.”

“Hey, it’s cool. I get being freaked out—Karnstein isn’t exactly a stalker that _I_ would want, either. Damn, though, I _really_ thought you knew. I figured you just didn’t want to talk about it.”

This was unsurprising, coming from LaFontaine. Of the three, they were the most reserved when it came to long talks. They would gladly chat Laura or Perry’s ears off about potion-making, and the intricacies of combining antidotes to create complex, unexplored realms of alchemy—but when it came to discussing personal matters? They had always been more of a listener than a confider.

“Right,” Laura agreed. She still felt flustered, and it was not a feeling she enjoyed. “Can we… let’s pay and go get our books.”

“Sure.”

Laura was grateful that it was so easy for LaF to let the topic go. The silence was companionable, rather than oppressing—as it would have been with Perry—as they handed over their silver sickles and made their way out of the shop.

LaF urged them into the secondhand bookstore, rather than continuing up the winding path to Flourish and Blotts. Laura did not take offense to the choice—though it could easily have been a comment on her monetary status, when LaF was more than capable of purchasing new books for themself—because she recognized it for what it was. Perry would no doubt be at the main bookstore, with the big crowds and the wide selection, and she’d be fussing over whether or not the corners of the books had been chafed or any of the pages were bent.

Wordlessly, Laura went down the list of supplies, tugging battered copies of ‘Intermediate Transfiguration’ and ‘Ancient Runes Made Easy,’ off the shelves. Dust clouds billowed up, swirling around her and LaF as though they were in an old speak-easy, thick with smoke.

“Oh,” stammered a voice, right as Laura was in the middle of a bought of coughing. She lifted her head, eyes watering, and immediately burst into another fit.

Carmilla backed away hurriedly, gaze darting from Laura to the ginger at her side. The bell over the door announced her departure, the door bouncing back sharply when it didn’t match up with its frame as it tried to close behind her.

Laura regained her breath, leaning against the nearest shelf.

“Well,” LaF commented with a raised eyebrow. “She just keeps getting weirder.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drop me a line on tumblr: [jg-firefly](https://jg-firefly.tumblr.com/)


	9. New Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang starts their fifth year at Hogwarts a little differently than Laura is used to

_Fall of 1974 (Fifth Year)_

Perry and LaF declared an unspoken truce, in the days leading up to their return to Hogwarts. Their politeness was sugary, fake to the point that Laura felt nauseous whenever they were in the same room, but there had not been a single row in the past three days, and so, when they waved farewell on Platform 9¾ and found an empty compartment, Laura was hardly about to complain.

“Hollis!” someone shouted, just as LaF was pulling the compartment door closed.

A wild-haired and bright-eyed James Potter appeared in the gap, pushing his way inside. Sirius towered in behind him and then a wide-eyed, twitchy Pettigrew. Remus trundled in at the back—the only one with the decency to look ashamed of the intrusion.

Laura carefully avoided his gaze, the tips of her ears going warm.

“Relax, we’re not staying,” James promised, as Perry started to make room on the bench beside her. He grinned roguishly, offering his fist to Laura. “Just wanted to greet my new captain!”

Laura raised an eyebrow, but accepted the fist bump.

“Potter, you do know that you’re still going to have to try out, don’t you?”

He waved his hand, “Psh, I’m not worried. And tryouts are exhausting for you, Hollis! I mean, imagine if the whole house showed up to go out for Chaser. You might be inclined to just call it early. It could happen.”

“Potter,” Laura warned, but he was already ducking back out the door, tossing a “Cheers!” over his shoulder.

Laura groaned loudly, flopping back in her seat.

“He’s going to pay the whole house to turn up to tryouts, isn’t he?”

“Yup,” LaF said, grinning widely. “Would you hate me if I joined in?”

“What’s one more?” Laura muttered.

“I can hand out detentions, you know, if they show up with the express purpose of disrupting your process,” Perry offered. “That would be the proper Prefect response to this sort of situation.”

LaF’s expression darkened, and Laura was relieved when their compartment door opened again. This time, it was Lily Evans who slipped inside.

“Oh, thank goodness it’s you three,” she sighed. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Perry beamed, patting the bench beside her. “Is everything all right?”

Laura suspected, from the glow about Perry’s face and her motherly tone, that this was exactly the sort of thing she had been dreaming about during the past four years, waiting patiently for her Prefect badge to arrive.

Lily sat, heaving a sigh. “It’s Severus. We came to the station together—we do every year, living up the street from one another and all. Anyway, everything was fine, and we were talking about our classes… and then he sees Potter.”

“And it’s business as usual,” LaF guessed.

“Precisely! It’s… it’s _infuriating_. Potter, with his… his stupid _hair,_ stealing stuff from the kitchens and the Quidditch supplies… thinking he’s better than everyone! And I want to just hate him with Sev, but the way Sev acts, it’s like Potter murdered his whole family. And all he _really_ does is play cruel jokes.”

“And flirt with you,” LaF put in.

“Yes,” Lily griped. “And _that.”_

“Wait, so what did Snape do?” Laura asked.

Lily turned her piercing green stare on her, somehow looking both fierce and sad at the same time. “He jinxed him. On the edge of the platform. Potter fell onto the tracks.”

“Snape _what?”_ Perry squeaked, almost falling out of her seat.

“Jinxed him,” Lily repeated matter-of-factly.

“Well, Potter was just in here,” LaF said. “So he, uh, clearly survived. That’s… good.”

“Yes. Remus pulled him out… while Sirius Black tackled Severus.”

“What?” Perry repeated, her pitch still erratic. “Where were… where were the _adults?_ Didn’t anyone _see_ this?”

“There were about twenty witnesses. _Aaand_ then I hit Black over the head with my broomstick. Actually, I think a few people clapped—” she gave her hair a half-toss, her lip twitching, “—and then Remus helped me pull them apart.”

“You hit Sirius? With a broom? Oh, I _so_ would have paid to see that…”

“LaFontaine,” Perry complained. “We cannot condone violence. We are _Prefects_.”

“Hey, she was breaking _up_ violence. That’s gotta be like… a double negative. All good. Hell, I’d give her some house points if we were at school.”

Perry glowered.

“Aren’t Prefects supposed to meet at the front of the train?” Lily piped up. Her eyes had narrowed as she glanced between them, her hands clasping more tightly in her lap.

“Oh!” Perry gasped, checking her watch and jumping to her feet. “Come on LaFontaine, she’s right. We’re almost going to be late!”

“A crisis, for sure,” LaF muttered to Laura, as they shuffled out of the compartment in Perry’s wake. “We’ll be back,” they added, pausing apologetically, “…I hope.”

The door clicked shut.

“…I feel like I stepped in something, there,” Lily grimaced.

“Nothing I haven’t been treading in all summer,” Laura grumbled, slumping back into her seat. “They’re insufferable. I mean, I love them… but right now I can’t wait to get to the castle and, I dunno, hide in the library or something. Well, maybe not the library. Perry would find me. Just… _somewhere_.”

“There will be Quidditch,” Lily suggested helpfully. “You’ll have to put up with Potter, of course, but he’s usually too busy showing off for his _adoring fans_.”

“Right, what do they call themselves? The mariners?”

“Marauders,” Lily corrected, rolling her eyes. “I have a few other ideas for what they could call themselves.”

Laura laughed. “I’m sure.”

“What about you, though?” Lily said, frowning. “Doesn’t Sirius Black harass you on like… a daily basis?”

She shrugged. “It’s usually just around the matches. And he’s doing it more for attention than because he actually wants me to say yes. I mean, it’s not like he’s in love with me.”

She knew at once that it was the wrong thing to say. Lily flushed a dark pink, looking sharply out the window at the rolling English countryside.

“I should go,” she said hesitantly. “My friends…”

Laura was already nodding, getting ready to unleash pleasantries and well-wishes for the schoolyear, when there was a third intrusion into her compartment.

Laura immediately felt her temperature spike, her pulse thumping dully behind her ears.  

Carmilla was frozen in the doorway, lips parted as she locked gazes with Lily.

“Oh. I-I thought…”

“I’m just leaving,” Lily said coldly. She glanced pointedly at Laura. “Unless you wanted me to stay..?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Laura stammered. Her voice sounded foreign, pitching oddly. “I’ll see you at the castle. And if Potter bothers you, just tell Perry. She’d be more than happy to use him as her very first detention assignment.”

Lily smiled, but it was more than a little forced. She brushed past Carmilla gingerly. The raven-haired girl hovered in the open compartment door, not meeting Laura’s eyes.

Through her panicked haze, Laura managed to string together a sentence.

“So, um, are you going to come in, or do you like the draft?”

Carmilla said nothing, but shifted inside and shut the door. She eyed the bench opposite Laura, and then leaned against the door.

“I didn’t see you on the platform,” Laura said, clearing her throat.

There was a long pause before Carmilla murmured, “Were you looking?”

Laura shivered, ever-so-slightly. “No,” she defended, “I just… didn’t see you.”

Carmilla shrugged, but said nothing. The silence hung thickly over them.

“You—you were in Diagon Alley,” Laura finally stammered.

“I was.”

Laura shifted in her seat. “Okay, I’m sorry, but you came in here… and I thought maybe you had something you wanted to _say.”_

Carmilla crossed her arms. She was all angles—her jawline sharp as glass, her nose cutting a striking profile, her elbows jutting out… When she pursed her lips, they were thin, and ever-so-pale. Laura was glad she was sitting down, because the moment Carmilla glanced up at her, she felt an unpleasant flip somewhere in the region of her stomach, and gripped her knees such that her knuckles went white.

“You’ve been made Captain,” Carmilla said, nodding her chin at the badge on Laura’s chest. She adjusted it self-consciously.

It wasn’t what the other girl had come in here to say, but it was something.

Laura nodded.

She wasn’t brave enough to ask what she really wanted. She went for something slightly less dangerous.

“What did you do to Lily Evans? I’ve never seen her glare at anyone like that. Well… maybe Potter.”

“She thinks I’m a bad influence on Snape,” Carmilla said. Her expression was unreadable, her tone flat.

“Oh.” Laura had almost forgotten that they belonged to the same circles. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she had begun to see Carmilla in a different light. She had _seen_ her—the real her—on the Quidditch pitch. Throwing up her fists and looping into a backflip, hair tossed back, smiling from ear-to-ear… _that_ was Carmilla.

Or she wanted it to be.

“I should go,” Carmilla murmured. “Your friends will be coming back.”

“Right.” Something had punctured in Laura’s chest. “And you wouldn’t want to be seen talking to me, of course.”

Carmilla froze, eyebrows drawing together. “That’s… not what I meant.”

“Then what _did_ you mean? I mean, you clearly came in here because you knew they were gone, so you wanted to get me alone. And then, what, you just leave without even saying anything real?”

A muscle jumped in Carmilla’s neck, as she scrunched up her nose. It would have been an adorable face, if Laura were not so concentrated on controlling her breathing as she waited for the reply to her outburst.

“I… wanted to say that I’m glad you're okay.” She forced the words through her teeth like they hurt, her jaw tight and her eyes hidden in the shadow of her hair.

Laura stared, opening and closing her mouth twice before she managed to get any sound out.

“Is that why you came to the Hospital Wing? To see if I was _okay?”_

Carmilla’s head jerked up, the door banging as her elbow rammed against it. Her eyes were wide, her pale face drawn with fresh, unexpected emotion.  

“You… know about that?”

Laura frowned, and nodded. “Yeah. LaF told me, after we saw you in Diagon Alley.”

The tension poured out of Carmilla’s shoulders with so much force that she visibly slumped. The door creaked on its tracks at the added pressure. She opened her mouth, a new vulnerability taking over her features, but whatever she was going to say was cut off by a sharp cry from the hallway.

“Trolley! Sweets for sale! Trolley!”

They both jumped. Carmilla stepped sharply away from the door, hovering uncertainly in the narrow space between the benches. It put her nearly on top of Laura, their legs almost brushing. There was a flash of something in her eyes that might have resembled fear.  

“Did… did you want..?”

“Oh, no,” Laura said, shaking her head. “Honeyduke’s is… I mean, you know the trolley prices…”

“Right,” Carmilla agreed swiftly, nodding with a bit more enthusiasm than was necessary. “I, uh… I never buy anything, either.”

Laura smiled tentatively, and then pointed to the bench. “LaF and Perry will probably be gone for a while longer… you could sit.”

Whatever Carmilla had been about to say before she was interrupted, though, seemed to be lost, now. She edged back towards the door.

“No, I should… I should go. The Ravenclaws…”

“Carmilla,” Laura cut her off, before she could slip from the compartment. She rose halfway out of her seat, and dropped back tentatively onto the edge when Carmilla turned to face her. “Tomorrow night. Seven. On the pitch?”

Slowly, Carmilla gave her one, small nod. And then she was gone.

\------

The first day of classes took far longer than Laura would have liked. Every time she checked her watch, it seemed like no time had passed. She would have fallen asleep in History of Magic, had it not been for the anxiety that was continuously gnawing on her, and by the time they returned to the Great Hall for lunch, Laura was twitching too visibly to go unnoticed.

“Laura, is everything alright?” Perry asked. LaF looked up, soup dripping off the edges of their spoon as it hovered halfway between the bowl and their mouth.

“What?” Laura said. She had been staring off into space—in a decidedly ‘Ravenclaw-esque’ direction.

“She is kind of pale,” LaF agreed, and Laura glared. Of course, this would be the _one_ thing they would agree with Perry on. “Is your scar hurting?”

“I’m fine.” The scar hadn’t hurt in months—not since the holidays had started. Madam Pomfrey had been displeased that the wound had not properly smoothed over, but had given her a cream to use on it. (Broom tail splinters could do a number, it would seem.) “I’m just distracted. Planning… planning for Quidditch.” She nodded hurriedly, as if that would help back up the lie she had come up with on the spot.

Perry’s eyes narrowed, but LaF was already lit up with the new subject—they had been talking about homework, before Laura tuned out.

“Have you picked a date for tryouts? I was joking, on the train, but now I’m actually thinking I might go out for something. I wouldn’t expect any preference, of course, and everyone else would have to, like, suck pretty hard, but why not?”

Laura hadn’t prepared talking points to go with her lie. “Um. No, I haven’t, uh, decided yet. I was thinking I would… you know, try to keep things fairly similar to how Danny ran the team. If it ain’t broke, y’know?”

When they had finally struggled through the rest of their first day—and heard the same speech, four times, about the upcoming O.W.L.s and how they should ‘expect this year to be far more rigorous than the previous ones’—Laura was feeling drained in more ways than one. Throughout each of these speeches, LaF’s color had gone a little greener, while Perry merely nodded sagely.

“Well,” Laura announced, halfway through dinner, “I think I’m going to head up to the Tower early.”

Perry and LaF _both_ frowned, this time. LaF’s mouth was full of pork chop, and Perry had barely touched her salad.

“Why?” LaF wanted to know. They spewed crumbs, with the question, and Perry wrinkled her nose.

“Just tired,” Laura insisted. She smiled. “I thought I’d read more of my Quidditch book.”

LaF hurried to swallow. “We could sneak down to the pitch!” they suggested, “Get in some _real_ training.”

“Laura is not going to sneak down to the pitch on our _first_ night,” Perry snapped. “She is Captain. And _you_ are certainly not going anywhere. Why do I have to keep reminding you that we are Prefects?”

“You don’t have to remind me. _I_ just don’t happen to think my badge is the same thing as a pair of _shackles.”_

Laura ducked away, grimacing. They had been doing so well, and she hated to think she had just re-lit the fuse, but she didn’t have time to worry about their sexual tension… and she had her own issues to deal with. It was almost seven.

She changed in the dormitory, pulling on a dark sweater even though it was a warm night, and nearly jumped out of her skin when someone called her name as she dashed back across the abandoned common room.

Remus Lupin stood up from one of the chairs around the fire, smiling apologetically.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

She let her hand fall from where it had clutched at her chest. “No, no, it’s fine. I was just—”

“Rushing off to break some rules?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow. It would have been an accusation, from Perry. From Remus, the suggestion was light, humorous. He smiled.

She shoved a hand through her hair.

_Carmilla and Remus jumping away from one another in an abandoned classroom._

“Um. No. Just… needed to grab something. Why aren’t—why aren’t _you_ at dinner?”

The glint in his eye suggested he knew she was deflecting—he had probably dealt with enough mischief from his own friends to know sneaking when he saw it—but he let her get away with it, shrugging as he said, “I had… other things to do.”

“Rule-breaking things?”

He laughed. “Not quite. You know, though, if you’re heading down to the Quidditch Pitch, you should steer clear of the third floor corridor. One of the second years let off a stink bomb, and Filch has been patrolling.”

“Oh. Thanks for the… tip. Not that I need it, of course. Since that’s not—I mean I’m totally not leaving the castle. At all.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “And I wouldn’t need to tell you that our captain serving detention would be damaging to the Gryffindor team, either. Naturally.”

“Nope,” Laura said. She plastered on a smile, and then edged her way out of the porthole.

 _He’ll be a Prefect for sure_ , she thought to herself, as she cut her way through the castle. _He might be a little more laid-back, but he’s got some Perry in him._

She nodded politely to the students she passed, who were just leaving the Great Hall, and was grateful that none were her own friends, who would have no doubt had some questions. She slipped out the front entrance as carefully as she could, and speed-walked the path down to the Quidditch Pitch, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly and keeping to the shadows.

This was probably the stupidest thing she had done in a long while. The sun was already past the horizon, leaving only faint, pink embers in its wake. It would be full-blown nightfall within the next ten minutes. She didn’t want to imagine the telling-off she would receive if McGonagall caught her—again.

And what if Carmilla didn’t show?

That thought was the most prominent in her mind, as she finally came under the shadow of the stands and slipped through the familiar entryway to the changing rooms. She collected her broom, which she had stashed during her break after Care of Magical Creatures, and kicked off hesitantly.

The last of the sun had been lost. The stars were out, and the shadows cast by the moon fell long and wispy.

A flash of light caught her eye, and she whipped her head around, almost losing her grip on the broom handle. Someone was holding a wand aloft, in the Ravenclaw stands. Her heart quickening, Laura rocketed across the pitch, landing easily on the railing and hopping down.

Carmilla lowered her wand, but left the tip lit. It cast shadows up on her face, like she were a kid at a muggle slumber party, shining a torch and telling spooky ghost stories.

“You came,” Laura said.

“Yes. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t, though.” She was still staring out across the pitch.

“I wouldn’t do that,” she said. The words were quick, and sincere, and entirely the wrong thing to say.

Carmilla’s eyes darkened. She looked down.

“Right. Of course _you_ wouldn’t.”

 _Dammit, Laura_.

“No, I didn’t mean that like—that wasn’t supposed to be an insult. I just meant I… I wouldn’t.” She laughed nervously. “I was the one that, y’know, invited you?”

At that, Carmilla nodded. Her brow furrowed, and she ducked her head as if to hide her expression before she sighed. “I had a good reason.”

“For what?”

“For not showing up, that night.”

Laura’s breath felt hot, trapped in her chest with the thumping of her heart.

“You did?”

“Yes. But, it’s… not something I can tell you.”

Laura’s lips tightened with disappointment, but she nodded regardless. It was a start.

“Okay.”

Carmilla regarded her for a moment, her head dipped and her stare coming up through her lashes with the faintest hint of surprise—but then she shook herself and dropped onto the nearest bench, kicking her boots up.

Tentatively, Laura joined her. She hesitated several long seconds before leaving an empty spot between them.

Laura tilted her head back, looking up at the vast expanse of stars while she waited to see if Carmilla would speak again. There always seemed to be so much more sky at Hogwarts. Even living in a secluded farming region in the country, there still weren’t _this_ many stars.

She thought it every year, when she got off the train and truly felt like she was a witch—and that the past few years had not been a feverish hallucination—but it seemed especially true right now. Hogwarts was a _magical_ place, a place that was… _other_.

Even with the headlines in the _Daily Prophet_ this summer, and the dangers looming over them all, sitting up here, in her favorite part of Hogwarts… it all felt so far away. Like Hogwarts could never be tainted by such things.

There was something to be said for safety.

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me,” Carmilla murmured thoughtfully.

When Laura turned to look at her, she found that Carmilla, too, was watching the skies. Her eyes were soft, her jaw relaxed. It struck Laura that she had never seen the other girl quite so vulnerable.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Laura finally stammered, when it became evident that Carmilla did not intend to continue the thought.

Carmilla shrugged, her eyebrows twitching together for a second and then relaxing once more. “I know we aren’t friends,” she said. The words were sharp, and they bit at Laura. This time, though, Carmilla carried on without giving her a chance to respond. “I’m not sure why you talk to me at all. And then you took that Bludger…” she shook her head, lips pursing into a thin line. “When I went to see you, I got shut out by your friends. I just… figured that either they hadn’t told you about the Hospital Wing, and you didn’t know I tried… or they had, and you were choosing to avoid me, anyway.”

“But I didn’t know,” Laura re-iterated. Slowly, was putting together the pieces, playing through yesterday’s conversation for the millionth time and only now connecting all the dots.

She let her breaths fall in and out, counting them until she could work up the courage to ask the thing that had been wearing at her for the last twenty-four hours.

“Carmilla… what were you going to say, on the train?”

The other girl stiffened. “It was nothing.”

It was clearly _not_ nothing. Laura wasn’t sure what possessed her—perhaps it was the odd mixture of emotions that always came with the first day back at Hogwarts, or a tiredness she had yet to acknowledge in the waning hours. Regardless, she found her hand landing on Carmilla’s arm, tugging the other girl’s gaze back to her.

Carmilla sighed. “I was going to say that… that I thought you would _write_ ,” she muttered, her voice small. “If you wanted to talk. And then you didn’t.”

Laura almost laughed at the irony, her relief hot and swift. “I thought _you_ would write!”

There was a heavy beat of silence.

“Did—did you _want_ me to?” Carmilla whispered. She had turned, and was facing Laura, now, instead of the stars. Her eyes were very dark. Darker than Laura remembered.

Any thoughts of lying to her were immediately wiped from Laura’s mind.

“I— _yeah_. I mean, I know that—that, like you said, we aren’t _friends_ , but I had thought…” She trailed off, unsure of her next words.

“Thought what?” Carmilla prompted.

Surely, Laura was imagining her eagerness.

“I don’t know! That… that it was changing? It’s not like we’ve been exactly _un_ friendly, recently. I mean… we _could_ be friends, right?” Her hand brushed against Carmilla’s arm again with her gesturing, and the contact sent tremors up to her shoulder, worming down to shiver in her stomach. “Would that… would that be so crazy?”

“To everyone else? Yes.”

“Well, who really cares about everyone else?” Laura declared, her hands flying up dramatically.

Carmilla’s lip quirked, but then fell back into a thin line. “You do. You care about what your friends think.”

“Well,” she hedged, “Maybe… it’s none of their business. Maybe we just don’t tell them. We meet here, just the two of us, whenever we’re both free. Practice together.”

“Okay,” said Carmilla. There was no hesitation, only a hurried nod.

They had shifted closer, somehow. Laura was convinced she must have scooted herself towards the other girl subconsciously, and the thought made her stomach clench. She carefully edged back, keeping her gaze on anything that was not Carmilla’s lips, or Carmilla’s neck, or _any_ part of Carmilla, because she was entirely too perfect and Laura was certain that if she leaned forward right now, her lips would feel incredible, and—

“We should probably get going,” she stammered, before her wayward thoughts could get any further out of control. “Um, I mean, if we get caught, we’ll be serving detention for the length of the schoolyear. That, and everyone will definitely know we were together.”

“Together?” Carmilla questioned, raising an eyebrow.

_Oh sweet Slytherin, save me._

She was very warm.

“Yeah, uh, hanging out. Together. Enemies and… and all that jazz.”

Carmilla nodded. Her expression was impossible to read in the faint glow of moonlight, but her eyes had narrowed with something Laura desperately hoped was not suspicion.

They stood together, making the long trek back to the castle in relative silence. Their shadows cut long streaks across the entrance hall when they finally slipped through the doors, and Laura was practically vibrating with unused energy even as she kept up with Carmilla’s lengthier strides. It was only when they reached their last mutual staircase that they slowed to a halt.  

“So… we’ll figure out a time to meet?” Laura whispered. Her trainers squeaked on the clean tile.

“Yes,” Carmilla agreed at once. She ducked as she grinned, her teeth flashing white in the glow from the nearest window.

Laura watched her go—watched the way she sauntered with such surefootedness, the way she lilted in and out of the shadows as if she were one of them—until she was lost around a corner, and then carefully made her own tired steps turn upwards, past the sleeping portraits of long-dead witches and wizards, and into Gryffindor Tower.

Falling into her four poster bed without bothering to change into her pajamas, Laura finally let herself revel in the warm, expanding sensation that had settled in her chest, acknowledging it for what it was:

_Hope._


	10. Fear Itself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's totally normal to hide friendships, right? Totally.

_Fall of 1974 (Fifth Year)_

It was only thanks to Perry’s numerous threats that James Potter did not bring the whole of Gryffindor House to Quidditch tryouts. Laura held them on the first Saturday morning of the term, having made exceptionally sparkly posters to hang in the common room for advertisement.

She was more proud of her artwork than she was of her prospects as captain.

“No, no, _no!”_ she shouted, blowing her whistle as she soared up to intercept the Quaffle.

Her potential Keeper reserve and her third failed Chaser were both wincing and clutching their faces. How someone managed to hit another player in the head and then break their own nose on their broom handle was beyond her.

“Potter!” she called. “Would you escort Rhodes and Steinholtz to the Hospital Wing?”

“Yes, Captain, my Captain!” Potter called, saluting. His teeth flashed in the morning sun. Like Carter, Pierce, and Johnson, he had breezed through his tryout and earned his spot on the team. If only Danny and Copeland’s empty roles were so easily filled.

“Let’s take a break! And then I’ll get to the rest of you!” Laura called. With some grumbling, the remaining contenders wandered away to find shady spots to sit. Laura cut across the pitch to land in the stands, where LaF and Perry were waiting.

“What. A. Nightmare,” she groaned, flopping down beside them.

“I hate to make your day worse,” LaF said slowly, “But, I figured you were too busy to notice that we gained a fresh audience.”

At their gesture, Laura turned.

Her heart rose, and then quickly sank. It was Carmilla—but she was not alone. It looked like the whole of the Ravenclaw team had turned out to see the competition. They had even brought snacks, and seemed to be quite enjoying themselves. Laura felt her face flush and she turned away hurriedly.

“I hate that she’s good, now,” LaFontaine muttered, glowering at the other team. Laura didn’t need to ask to know who they were talking about. She toyed with her hair self-consciously and said nothing.

“Perhaps she’s gotten a private tutor,” Perry suggested.

“Not in the middle of the schoolyear,” argued LaFontaine. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she’d cast some sort of spell on her broom. Or her gloves. Or, hell, maybe even the Quaffle.”

“It’s impossible to tamper with official Quidditch equipment,” Laura recited. “It’s protected with the highest level of enchantments—that’s why everything is so ungodly expensive.”

“So, you’re saying it would take powerful _dark magic_ to do such a thing.”

Laura made a face. “Fine, yes. Not _impossible_ … for someone like You-Know-Who. We’re talking about fifth year students, though.” She paused for emphasis. “That’s _crazy.”_

“Maybe not for them,” LaF said, pointing.

Both Laura and Perry turned.

“Oh, screw me,” Laura muttered under her breath. A collection of Slytherins had just strolled onto the pitch, wearing shit-eating-grins and strutting like they owned the place.  

Laura shoved herself upright and snatched up her broom.

“Now, Laura, really—” Perry started to complain.

“You want backup?” LaF asked excitedly. They were already halfway out of their seat.

With a shake of her head, Laura launched herself off the edge of the stands, falling into a short dive before she streaked low across the pitch and came up to hover obstructively in the path of her latest audience members.

Theo Straka was hardly an intimidating figure. Alone, she’d be happy to spit insults at him. A year above her, but only a few inches over her head, she could out-duel him with one hand tied behind her back—possibly even without a wand, thanks to seven straight summers of Karate classes.

The unfortunate fact of the matter was that, despite his lack of talent, Straka did not travel alone.

…And that he had been made the newest Slytherin Captain.

“See, this is how you know when a team has fallen to the absolute slums: Lawrence was reduced to picking Hollis as her successor.”

“That’s big talk, considering the way your team played last season,” she scoffed.

He sneered. “How’s Lawrence doing? Gone to hide back in the muggle world, last I heard… Is that where you’re gonna go, when this is over? Poor little mudblood Hollis, with her second-rate broom and her big, big dreams.”

“Where’s your old captain, Straka? Last I heard, he was working for your Daddy’s firm. Odd how he picked you, after such a generous job offer landed in his lap. Almost like you didn’t earn it yourself—almost like you’ve never earned anything for yourself, your whole life.”

Straka whipped out his wand, his cronies quickly following suit.

A series of thumps announced the arrival of back-up that she had not requested. The Gryffindor team—and a selection of tryouts—had just landed behind Laura, outnumbering the Slytherins.

Straka lowered his wand, opening his mouth to snarl some final insult… and only unleashing silence. He moved his lips again, scowling, and then reached up to grasp at his throat, yelling in mime, arms waving. Not a sound escaped his lips. His teammates looked alarmed. Laura glanced behind her at the Gryffindors, who were equal parts stunned and amused.

Straka pointed at her threateningly, and then stormed away, his team scurrying to keep up.

In the stands, the Ravenclaws had shuffled to their feet, and were making a hasty retreat. Laura imagined there would be teacher involvement very shortly, and it would be wise for any by-standers to be outside the blast zone. Especially if it were McGonagall.

Laura searched for Carmilla amidst the throng, but only caught one glimpse of curly, raven hair before they had all ducked from sight.

\------

The first weeks of the term passed slowly. Perry had not been wrong about the emphasis that would be placed on the O.W.L.s this year. Since that first day of lecturing on the importance of the exams, their professors were piling them with more homework than Laura had ever imagined one student could be capable of completing. If Quidditch practice were not going so poorly, she would have found it her only respite.

“That could have been… better,” LaFontaine muttered after their third evening on the pitch as the Gryffindor reserve Beater.  

Laura had been angry, at the start, but now she was merely glum. Her hair had grown icicles on the walk back up to the castle, a fashion statement that she was certain had come from a jinx by Potter, rather than the light drizzle they had been flying through.

It would not have been undeserved. Her poor play-calling had forced him into not one, but two collisions with the Beaters. He was sullen when he tossed his broom aside in the changing rooms, and, though she suspected this was largely because Lily Evans had been in the stands, she still felt guilty.

Laura had no idea how to be a captain, a fact that was becoming clearer and clearer with each passing day.

“Please tell me those are for us,” she groaned as she tossed herself into the nearest armchair in the Gryffindor common room, reaching for a steaming mug.

Perry beamed, levitating the mugs into her and LaFontaine’s waiting hands. “I figured you’d be chilly, so I mixed in some pepper-up potion. We have a lot to get through tonight.”

Laura set down the cocoa with a _clunk_ , sloshing the contents onto the table. Perry gave a low whimper of complaint, clearing up the stains as best she could with her wand, but Laura had buried her head in her hands and was not paying attention.

“I can’t feel my fingers, let alone my brain,” she griped.

“Well, you _shouldn’t_ be able to feel your brain, Laur, so that’s probably a good thing,” said LaF. “Cheer up. It looks like Perry’s annotated our notes for us…”

“Yes, they needed some… attention. You are rather remiss with things like _bullet points_. And Laura—your penmanship is astonishing, truly.”

“Gee, thanks,” Laura muttered through her fingers.

“Hey, at least you’ve got Perry to partner up with. It looks like she’s nearly finished your Herbology research, and I’d bet my life-savings that Karnstein hasn’t even cracked a single textbook for ours…”

Laura’s stomach turned at the reminder.

When they had arrived at the greenhouses their second day back and discovered they were to share the course with Ravenclaw, Laura’s internal reaction had fallen somewhere between ecstatic and terrified. The unnerving sensation had only intensified when Professor Sprout had declared they would be working in partners to care for a collection of Self-Fertilizing Shrubs (“Don’t go trusting the name, now, they are finicky things, with very specific care instructions…”).

Laura had all but lost her footing trying to see Carmilla over the heads of their classmates.

Only, Professor Sprout had picked their partners for them.

Which meant Laura was working with Perry, while LaFontaine had been placed with Carmilla. LaF had complained endlessly in the following weeks about the unfairness of this arrangement, and Perry’s placating reminders that it was ‘better them than Laura’ did little to calm Laura’s turbulent thoughts.

Especially when she caught Carmilla’s eye over their shared work bench, and wondered at the faintest of smiles that sometimes seemed to curve her lips.

They hadn’t had a chance to meet, since that first night out on the pitch.

It was slowly killing her.

Carmilla swam through her thoughts endlessly, her name always seeming to hover dangerously on Laura’s lips, a secret both exhilarating and all-consuming. She had now had three— _three_ —dreams featuring the other girl’s lips pressed firmly against her own.

She woke, each time well before the sun had risen, with frustration snarling in her chest. There was no going back to sleep in the aftermath of something so perfect and so entirely out of reach, and the longing was a dull, panging ache buried deep in her chest. It followed her everywhere, like an unwelcome house guest.

“Earth to Laura.”

“Huh?” She blinked and realized that both of them were staring at her expectantly. She shook her head. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“Told you she wasn’t listening,” LaF smirked at Perry. “Perr was just trying to warn you that we saw Karnstein trying to mess with your bag in class today, when you were talking to Professor Sprout.”

“What?” Laura asked blankly.

The panic came swift and without warning. She seized her bag from where it was slumped beside the chair, rifling through the mixture of broken quills and parchment scraps that littered the bottom under her textbooks. Was there a note? What if Carmilla had wanted to meet, and now Laura had missed her, and she thought Laura hadn’t come on _purpose_ …

“Relax,” said LaF, waving an arm at her. Laura raised her eyes, still clutching the bag in a death-grip. “She didn’t do anything. We checked. And Perry cast a nice little charm on it so that it won’t let non-Gryffindors come within a few centimeters. They’ll hit like… an invisible wall, if they try. It’s pretty cool.”

“She what?” Laura stammered. She cut her eyes at Perry, who flushed. Laura, in an unreasonable bout of anger, hoped it was in embarrassment and not pride. “Did you say anything to her?” she demanded.

“ _I_ didn’t,” said Perry. “But, LaFontaine did warn her to stay away from you. Which I still say was a bad idea. You shouldn’t go about threatening someone like her—either of you.”

“Hey, she had it coming,” LaF declared. “Who knows what she was trying to do; she could have been planning to put something dangerous in there. Or maybe hex it so it like… ate Laura’s arm or something. Snape could have taught her a spell.”

Laura was no longer listening. Her hands had resumed their search of the bag, and she had just found a scrap of parchment caught in the pages of her Transfiguration textbook. It was clearly not hers, as it was faint blue in color and not the pale, aged yellow of her own scrolls. She turned it over between her thumb and index finger, frowning.

It was blank.

\------

Carmilla was definitely staring at her.

Laura hadn’t been certain in the Great Hall that morning, her eyes continuously drawing to the Ravenclaw table as if magnetized (and finding Carmilla’s head just lowering, each time), but now she was sure.

They still sat across the dungeon from one another in Potions, as far from one another as physically possible. It was a natural migration, one that had been built upon years of being shuffled into the dungeon as enemies for these miserable lessons, but Laura had never resented it nearly as much as she did this morning.

If they sat closer, perhaps she could get a message to Carmilla, or whisper a few words.

Maybe she could get an explanation for the seemingly useless scrap of paper Carmilla had risked so much to gift her. She had nearly been caught, after all, and if LaF or Perry found out that they were—well, that they were _whatever_ they were—then it would surely be… _bad_.

They would ask questions.

They would be _weird_.

(And Carmilla might figure Laura out. Then _she_ would be weird.)

Besides, she reasoned, Carmilla didn’t want to lose her air of indifference. People would surely look at her differently, if she started making friends with Gryffindors—with girls like _Laura_.

Professor Slughorn was prattling on about antidotes at the front of the classroom, pacing slowly in front of his desk as he _ho-ho_ ed his way through stories about terrible poisons he had encountered in his years as a potion master. LaFontaine was riveted, their face alight and their whole body hunched forward to listen attentively, while Perry looked like she might combust from how frantically her quill was working to keep up with his words.

Laura glanced at the parchment laid out in front of her, on which she had written (as neatly as she could manage): _Types of Brewable Antidotes._

The rest of the paper was completely blank, save for the large splotch of violet ink she had accidentally dropped in the corner.

She had barely heard a word of the lecture. Carmilla had put her hair up in a messy bun, today, and curls of silky black hair were teasing loose to brush against the perfect arches of her cheekbones.

Laura wished she could kiss her.

She wished Carmilla liked girls. 

More specifically, _her_.

As she rested her head on her hand, catching the way Carmilla’s lips twitched along with whatever she was scribbling into her notes, the other girl paused and glanced up through her eyelashes.

They blinked at one another, and Laura swore she saw Carmilla stifle a laugh—it was hard to say, because she was always so quick to school her expressions—but she drew a hand up to hide her face, then tucked one of the loose strands of hair behind her ear and raised a pointed eyebrow.

Laura glanced at her friends, and, not wanting to squander the opportunity, pretended to be digging for a new inkwell in her bag. She set it next to her still-very-full inkwell on the desk, and carefully held up the scrap of paper between two fingers, mimicking Carmilla’s raised eyebrow.

Carmilla definitely laughed, now, a silent chuckle that went with a shake of her head. She mouthed something, and Laura felt herself flush.

She was terrible at reading lips. _Terrible_. She could never make out what the other person was saying, and it always ended with someone—it was usually LaFontaine—rolling their eyes at her and throwing their hands up in defeat. She had once _thought_ she understood, had gone so far as to nod along convincingly, and then failed to show up at the ‘agreed’ classroom that evening. LaFontaine had been Perry’s sole test subject for a new binding spell she had been researching.

Laura had not heard the end of it for weeks.

She was already shaking her head in panic, before Carmilla was even finished with her unintelligible sentence, mouthing desperately: _I can’t read lips!_

Carmilla frowned and then laughed. She mouthed whatever it was again, slower.

Laura grimaced. She was sure she was turning a very obvious red, but she was _useless_ at this, and any second Carmilla was going to give up and they probably wouldn’t even get to talk after class, because of her friends, and then they’d never actually get a chance to be alone together, and—

With another little shake of her head, her smile still firmly in place, Carmilla raised her fingers to ask: _seven?_

Laura nodded without thinking, and then slapped her own forehead as she remembered that she had scheduled practice for that night after dinner. Carmilla was watching her in confusion, forehead wrinkled, leaning forward in her seat and waiting for an explanation. Laura was about to give one—or at least try—when Perry interrupted with a tap on her wrist.

Laura jumped.

Her friend was eyeing her inquisitively, thankfully oblivious to the silent line of communication that had been crossing the dungeon between her and Carmilla.

She tried to motion that she was fine, that Perry should go back to her notes, but Perry had caught sight of Laura’s blank parchment. Her eyes bugged, her lips pressing into a thin line. Laura felt very much like she was being scolded in mime.

There wasn’t anything to do but hurriedly copy down everything that was still on the board, and even then she could  feel Perry’s eyes drawing towards her every few moments. Slughorn continued to prattle on about an expedition he’d gone on in Ireland. Every time she dared glance to Carmilla, the other girl was looking away.

It wasn’t until they were packing up their things, the chatter rising in preparation for the lunch break, that Laura managed to get her attention again.

She had written her response on a scrap of parchment—not the one Carmilla had given her; that one she was still keeping safe, in her curiosity—and she held it out under her workbench as Carmilla passed.

The other girl took it without a word.

\------

“Oh, thank goodness,” Laura sighed. The clang of the astronomy tower door had set her on edge, expecting anyone from Filch to Dumbledore himself at this point, as it was nearly nine o’clock, but it was Carmilla who materialized out of the shadows, peering around in amusement.

“You really have an affinity for out-of-bounds spaces, you know that?” she said. She dropped smoothly onto the stone parapet at Laura’s side.

“I’m a Gryffindor,” Laura reminded her, grinning. “We considered rules to be more like… _guidelines.”_

Carmilla snorted. “Of course you do. In Ravenclaw, we just make our own.”

“And where does the ‘Ravenclaw Rulebook’ stand on sneaking out after hours?”

“It’s actually more of an _individual_ exercise.” She shrugged. “The ‘Carmilla Rulebook’ thinks rule-breaking is perfectly fine, so long as you have a good reason.”

Laura felt a low tingle creep down her spine. She did not ask what Carmilla’s reason was for coming here tonight. She did not dare.

“So, what is this?” she asked instead, holding out the little bit of blue parchment.

Carmilla plucked it easily from between her fingers, setting it down on the stone in front of her crisscrossed legs. She pulled out her wand.

 _“Aparecium,”_ she said smoothly. At once, inky words rose from within the parchment as if surfacing from the bottom of a pool. Carmilla’s narrow, looped handwriting spelled out _Wednesday at 7?_

At once, Laura knew it was obvious, that such a spell should have been her first response to finding the note.

“Oh,” she said dumbly.

Carmilla merely shrugged, though, instead of scoffing or asking why she had been unable to figure it out. And then she said something Laura found entirely unexpected: “Sorry. I should have realized the cloak-and-dagger thing was too Ravenclaw.”

“What? No, I should have…” Laura was flushing, and she ducked her head in an attempt to hide it. “That was obvious. I’m just an idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” Carmilla argued at once. She touched Laura’s shoulder. “You’re not an idiot.”

It took Laura a moment to formulate words.

“Okay,” she stammered, clearing her throat. “Um, thanks.”

Carmilla was still staring at her, a fierceness in her gaze that Laura found impossible to look at directly without her heart threatening to stop.

“I mean it. You’re more clever than most of the students in our year. Probably the ones above us, too.”

Now, that just wasn’t true. She thought of every Charms lesson that had left her defeated, every Transfiguration quiz she had failed.

“I’m way behind _you_ ,” she argued. “And LaF, and Perry…”

“Classrooms don’t measure intelligence,” Carmilla recited, as though she had learned the phrase from somewhere. She said it with the conviction of someone that believed the words. “You see things in a way that others don’t,” she added, and then she looked away, letting her head fall back so she could frown up at the stars. “You saw straight through me, on the Quidditch pitch. I wasted years, and you fixed me in two weeks.”

It was probably the most flattering thing anyone had ever told her. Laura didn’t know what to say.

“Anyway,” Carmilla continued, her voice dropping and catching a faint, bitter undertone. “I wouldn’t measure by your friends.”

Laura swallowed.

“I know LaFontaine said some things,” she started, biting her lip. “And I—I obviously don’t want you to ‘stay away from’ me.”

“Well, that’s good, at least.”

The bitterness had slipped a little, but it was still there.

Laura felt a tug of guilt in her stomach, but changed the topic hurriedly.

“You jinxed Straka, didn’t you? When I was holding tryouts?”

Carmilla shifted a little, continuing to stare upwards as something shifted in her expression. The shadows from the full moon fell starkly across her pale features. “He was being obnoxious.”

Laura’s lip twitched. “That’s his natural state of being. And he was already giving up, when you cursed him.”

“I know. But, really, I saved him a much worse fate.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mm-hmm.” Her eyes had slipped close, and she crossed her arms loosely over her chest, hugging herself against the chill that had cut across the tower. “If I’d let him finish speaking his mind, he’d have been pummeled by about a dozen Gryffindors. And I happen to know you’re quite talented at a rather nasty boils jinx.”

“Oh.” Laura flushed. “I did use that on you once, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. And in our second year, no less—not that it wasn’t deserved. So, as I was saying, I did him a favor.”

Laura remembered the incident. They had been between classes, the week after Laura’s first match as the Gryffindor Keeper. Carmilla had tripped her in the hall and said she was trying to help her learn how to fly. Someone had thrown the first curse—Laura suspected herself—and she had only landed the lucky blow after several failed shots from both sides. Carmilla had spent the evening in the Hospital Wing, and Laura had spent a week in detention.

“Well, I heard it took Madam Pomfrey two hours to work out a counter-jinx to fully correct his vocal cords.”

“Hm. I heard it was three,” Carmilla smirked.

They sat in companionable silence for a long while, watching as a few meteors streaked low across the sky. Somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, a wolf howled. Laura was sure Carmilla had fallen asleep, her eyes peacefully closed and her shoulders relaxed, when the other girl murmured, “You put together a half-decent team.”

Laura smiled lazily. “Oh? And how would you know that? You left before the trials finished.”

“The rumors make their way around. I mean, you already know who made my team, and the others, don’t you?”

She wasn’t wrong. Laura had indeed heard the names of the newest team members floating around, from the latest second-year Chaser on Hufflepuff to the appointment of each new captain. Jenna Martin, the seventh year Ravenclaw Seeker, had taken over Huxley’s role as captain. That Carmilla had made the team had not surprised anyone, this year, given her rise to glory in the second half of term last season.

“Anyhow, it’s going to be a good year,” Carmilla continued. “I fully intend to take you down.”

Laura laughed. “And I intend to get revenge for Danny. Stand in my way if you dare.”

“I do dare,” said Carmilla. Laura turned to meet her gaze, and found her eyes glinting with mischief. “But… I will _gladly_ help you flatten Hufflepuff.”

There was something behind the words. A sincerity that belied their teasing nature. Laura rolled her bottom lip between her teeth.

“You do know they apologized, don’t you?” she asked. “And Hooch didn’t even give them a foul.”

“Huh. I like how you assume my actions would be on your behalf.”

Laura scoffed, but it was to hide the embarrassment flushing her cheeks. The darkness helped. “Oh, sure, because you have so many reasons to hate Hufflepuff on your own. Like how you totally crushed them last year.”

“My reasons are my own, thank you very much.” There was a beat of silence, and then she muttered, “But there still should have been a foul.”

“Ha!” Laura declared triumphantly.

She spun, a finger already pointed accusingly, and found herself very, _very_ close to Carmilla’s face. The other girl’s eyes widened, and Laura ducked back, her ears hot.

Several burning memories from her recent dreams came to mind.

She cleared her throat. “Um, anyways, Warner wasn’t trying to hit _me_. I’ve heard the story from every single Gryffindor that was in those stands. He hit the Bludger at Potter. It missed him, hit the boundary, and came back towards Warner. I just happened to be in the middle.”

Carmilla scowled. “Warner’s still a tool.”

Even though Laura laughed, she was shaking her head. “That’s not relevant.”

“I’m pretty sure it is.”

Laura was trying to come up with a clever reply when the clock tower let off its first mournful cry. She glanced down at her watch, the face lit with the pale gleam of the full moon. It was 11 PM.

“It’s getting late,” she said with a frown.

A part of her was hoping Carmilla would shrug and make some comment about how lateness wasn’t a part of the ‘Carmilla Rulebook.’ But the other girl simply nodded and rolled to her feet.

They crept back through the castle, Carmilla murmuring instructions to Laura at each turn. She seemed to have a sixth sense about where Mrs. Norris was, keeping them hidden in dark alcoves until the coast was clear.

She left Laura at the final staircase beneath Gryffindor Tower, and the silence stretched for a beat as they looked at each other in the necessary hush that accompanied sneaking about after hours.

Carmilla gave her a nod as a last farewell.

Thoughts wrapped up in shooting stars and the gleam of Carmilla’s eyes by the light of the full moon, Laura almost didn’t notice anything odd about the portrait of the Fat Lady when she reached it, speaking the password (“Gargoyle Drool”) through a massive yawn.

The painting did not swing forward, and she frowned to find herself facing a painting of an empty armchair. She looked about, scanning the nearby paintings, but the Fat Lady was nowhere to be seen. Most of the portraits were snoring. One, a stern-looking man with a flat nose, opened one eye, scoffed, and promptly went back to sleep.

It had never occurred to Laura, in five years, that the Fat Lady might leave her post. She had _always_ been there, even after the most daring curfew-breaking adventures Laura had been on. Normally, she just offered a few stern looks or a sharp glare, and then swung open to let her pass.

As far as Laura knew, she also never tattled on her students to the likes of McGonagall. Laura had always appreciated that.

With a sigh, she sat down on the hard stone floor of the corridor, put her back against the wall, and closed her eyes. It was going to be a long night… especially if one of the teachers on patrol came by, or, worse, Peeves. And it wasn’t as if she had somewhere else to go. Carmilla was no doubt safely tucked in bed by now, and she didn’t exactly have access to the Ravenclaw dormitories. In fact, she wasn’t even sure where they were. She’d never had occasion to visit.

The moon had fallen below the horizon line, the sun peeking through the windows of the tower, when Laura startled awake, a figure standing over her, looking just as alarmed to see her as she was to see him.

“Laura?” Remus Lupin stammered.

“What’s this, now?” a voice cried out over their heads. The Fat Lady was back in her portrait. She peered down at the both of them, arms crossed. “Out _before_ breakfast? In all my time…”

“Gargoyle Drool!” Laura proclaimed, scrambling to her feet and carefully avoiding Remus’s eyes. The portrait swung open, and she clambered through the hole that it revealed. The common room was empty.

“What were you doing outside the dormitory?” Remus demanded, hopping down behind her.

“What were _you_ doing?” Laura shot back. He blinked, and said nothing. He was very pale, she noted, with dark circles under his eyes. Wherever he had been, he had not been sleeping.

Voices announced the impending arrival of fellow Gryffindors.

“I didn’t see you, and you didn’t see me,” Laura said quickly.

“Deal,” Remus agreed. He dodged up the stairs to the boys’ dormitory and Laura tossed herself into an armchair, snatching up the nearest abandoned textbook.

“Laura?” Perry asked, not two seconds later. She was already dressed for the day, and she took in the sight of Laura sitting by the fire with the utmost suspicion glinting in her narrowed eyes.

“Good morning,” Laura said. Her smile was very forced.

“Have you been down here… all night?”

“Oh. Um. Yes. I fell asleep by the fire. I actually just… just woke up.”

Perry’s lips went very thin. “Mm,” she hummed. It was a judgmental sound. “We have double Potions today. You should change now and get down to breakfast so we aren’t late.”

The other Gryffindors had begun to flow into the common room, some still rubbing their eyes, others already chattering away. They climbed out of the porthole in a stream.

LaF was just tugging on their robes, when Laura joined them in the otherwise empty dormitory.

“Dude, where have you _been?”_ they asked, eyes wide. “You weren’t in bed this morning, and Perry was muttering—a _lot—_ about how she didn’t want to have to issue detention to her friends, but that she wasn’t above it. You should know she’s on curfew duty the next few days. I’d watch out.”

“You aren’t going to threaten me with detention, then?” asked Laura.

“Ha. No. If I wasn’t a prefect, I’d be asking to come join you. I mean, you _were_ down at the pitch, right? Running plans for training?”

Laura nodded, focusing her attention on tugging on her robes, not wanting to meet LaF’s eyes as she lied.

“I can cover for you, you know,” LaF was continuing. “If you tell me when you’re planning on going, I can make sure you don’t get locked out.” At Laura’s startled look, they added, “I mean, I’m assuming that’s what happened. It’s raining this morning, and you don’t look like a drowned rat.”

Laura sighed in relief. “Oh. Yes. The Fat Lady was gone when I got back. I mean,” she threw her hands up in exasperation, “I didn’t even know she could _do_ that!”

“Apparently it’s pretty common. There’s a portrait of a group of women drinking wine down on the fourth floor, and she visits some nights. I found Potter and his friends out in the corridor last month, when I was on patrol. I swear they’d been out in the Forbidden Forest, from the look of them.”

“I just ran into Remus,” Laura said. She would have felt bad, sharing the secret, but she had no doubt that Potter, Black, and Pettigrew would know about her presence in the corridor, soon enough. There was nothing those boys didn’t share with one another. “He was alone, though.”

“That’s odd. I swear I never see any of those four by themselves—except Potter, and that’s only when he’s chasing after Lily.”

Laura had to agree that it was strange. She was still thinking about it when they reached the dungeons, and her thoughts were only derailed when she caught sight of Carmilla.

Wednesday’s lesson, and last night’s adventure, both abruptly seemed ages ago. She wondered if it would be unreasonable—or suspicious—if she tried to get Carmilla to meet again that night. 

She sat down hurriedly when Carmilla smiled in her direction, warmth creeping over her, and fixed her gaze pointedly on the board. 

Professor Slughorn had them brewing the Draught of Peace as their first real project of the term. A dull nausea settled in Laura’s stomach as he listed out the dangerous properties of a failed potion.

Perry, of course, had already read extensively on the topic. She set out her ingredients in a precise line across her workstation, her face pale with determination. LaFontaine was the only student who looked remotely at ease. They didn’t need to have read extensively on the subject to have their innate potions ability, and, if anything, they looked excited to begin. Even Carmilla, who was a top-notch student in almost every subject, looked uneasy when Laura made the poor choice to dart her gaze in the other girl’s direction.

Perry’s potion had turned a tangerine sort of orange (the eighth step), by the time Laura began adding her hellebore in slow drops, wondering if it would ever turn the expected turquoise. LaF was already grating their unicorn horn into a powder, ages ahead of them both. When Slughorn made his rounds, he gave a cheery little cry at their cauldron.

“I’m having a little get-together next Thursday evening,” he said with a wink, once he had finished praising their work. “Dinner for just a few of my top-performing students, you know… five o’clock, in my office?”

LaFontaine grinned. “I’ll be there,” they said eagerly.

The Slug Club was hardly the secret that Professor Slughorn liked to make it out to be. Everyone in the school knew about his private soirees for his favorite students. Perry was certainly aware—she talked about the benefits of being included with reverence (“It’s the highest of recommendations, really! A word from Slughorn can get you an internship at the Ministry without so much as an interview!”) and did everything in her power to appeal to his interests.

Her efforts had been fruitless, though. He only seemed to extend his invitations to students of at least fifth year, something that had placated Perry until this very moment. Her expression had darkened to a dangerous puce.

The unpleasant sensation in Laura’s gut intensified. It would seem that the lull in their feud was about to come to a crashing end.

She was not wrong. By Thursday, when LaFontaine slipped away before dinner to go down to Slughorn’s office in the dungeons, the air in their dormitory had gone positively brittle. Laura spoke very little, not in the mood to get called out for favoritism, lest she dare mention Quidditch to LaFontaine or studying to Perry while the other was in earshot.

“It’s unbelievable,” she complained bitterly one evening in late October, as she sat with Carmilla up in the clock tower, watching a stream of students on their way down to Hogsmeade Village for the first visit of the year. McGonagall was checking students off on her list as they passed, and the air was thick with the smell of baking pumpkin from the Great Hall.

Something passed over Carmilla’s face, gone in a flash, and then she let the Snitch she was toying with loose from her grasp, dark eyes watching it zip about for a moment before she snapped it up again. Perry had confiscated it from James Potter and instructed Laura to return it to the Quidditch supplies, which she had not done, and Carmilla had nicked it from Laura's bag without apology. At some point, she knew she would need to get it back. 

It was just difficult, she had found, to say  _no_ to Carmilla.

“Really it’s shocking that it’s taken them this long,” Carmilla commented blithely. “Besides, they aren’t nearly as bad as that whole Snape-Potter-Evans triangle.”

Laura blinked. She had never thought about other people realizing what was going on with Perry and LaFontaine. It had been obvious to _her_ , of course, for years. That Carmilla could so casually acknowledge the real cause of the tension between her friends was… startling.

It also made her wonder.

She changed the topic. “So, Hufflepuff versus Slytherin next weekend—who do you think will win?”

“Slytherin,” said Carmilla, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “With Kirsch gone, and a new Seeker that can barely fly, they’ll be lucky if they manage to get any points before Slytherin picks up the Snitch. As much as I want to see Hufflepuff trounced, I’d rather not face Slytherin directly off a win.”

There was no reason for Carmilla to want Hufflepuff trounced, outside of what had happened to Laura. She might have said she had her own reasons, in that cryptic way she was so good at, but, try as she might, Laura had been unable to fathom what they could be. She was choosing not to dig deeper into it.

It seemed like there was a growing list of things she was avoiding with Carmilla, these days—the thing with Remus; relationships in general; and, as of this morning, the first trip to Hogsmeade.

The last of the students had wound their way down the path, now, and McGonagall had packed up her list, leaving one of the seventh year prefects in her stead. Though the whole of the school (third years and up) had been talking about the trip all week, the topic had not come up once when Laura and Carmilla spoke. Even when they had agreed to meet up here, neither had acknowledged that it would be ideal due to the emptiness of the castle, or that they were bailing on their other friends by doing so.

What Laura most wished to do, really, was to go to Hogsmeade _with Carmilla_. Like the many other things she was too afraid to say, though, she kept this to herself.

Besides, if they went together, someone was sure to see. Was sure to ask questions.

“Want to go to the pitch?”

Carmilla released the Snitch in Laura’s direction, and she caught it easily. “Sure,” the other girl shrugged. “Shouldn’t be anyone there, today.”

There was something in her tone that Laura couldn’t read. She was puzzling over it, trying to work around the jumpiness in her gut that always accompanied the time she spent with Carmilla, when she heard the first scream.

Laura froze, her hand gripping the railing and her breath catching in her throat. She spun to find Carmilla on the step behind her, her eyes just as wide as Laura’s.

There was another shriek, cutting through the thin fall air and echoing eerily. Laura didn’t pause to consider, she simply bounded the rest of the way down the staircase, dodging past the alarmed prefect with Carmilla on her heels.

There was an icy chill to the air that had not been present that morning. It was fall, but the day had been on the warmer side. Laura had not even put on a scarf. Now, she clutched her arms about herself, her breath billowing out in a cloud as they reached the edge of the village. It was quiet, the streets empty. At her side, Carmilla had gone very still.

“We have to go back,” she said, catching Laura by the arm.

Laura’s legs felt stiff under her, her knees foreign and forgotten. They didn’t want to bend, to move.

 _“Laura,”_ Carmilla insisted, her voice suddenly shrill, quavering. “I think—I think it’s Dementors.”

 _“Dementors?”_ Laura stammered. They had learned about the creatures in several of their classes—History of Magic described them as the guards of Azkaban, while Defense Against the Dark Arts went in depth on their abilities—but Laura had never expected to see one in _person_. They were creatures of nightmares, and she had certainly had no plans to visit the wizarding prison.

They turned back the way they had come, but there was a fog growing on the path, seeping up ominously from the weeds in the cobblestones.

“Come on.” Carmilla seized her by the hand, tugging her urgently towards the nearest shop, which happened to be Honeyduke’s. The door handle didn’t budge, and Carmilla swore, changing course rapidly and directing them across the street.

In the growing mist, Laura thought she saw a towering shadow. A figure in a dark cloak, taller than any person.

The music shop was also locked. There was no sign of whoever had screamed, nor of anybody at all. The street was abandoned, bags trampled and scarves lost. Carmilla banged furiously upon the door of The Three Broomsticks. “Let us in, assholes!”

“Carmilla,” Laura whispered. Her teeth were chattering, a terrible sense of dread wearing upon her. She couldn’t feel her fingers, couldn’t tell if her feet were still touching the ground, and her head was starting to feel light, like she’d had too much Firewhisky.

The other girl glanced at her, eyes going wide. The whites shone like slivers of moonlight—and it _had_ gone dark all of a sudden, hadn’t it? Laura had not seen where the darkness had come from, but the cloudy October sky had been lost from view.

“Fuck,” Carmilla hissed.

She shifted abruptly, pinning Laura behind her, so that her back was against the door of the pub, with Carmilla’s head of hair blocking her view of the street.

There was a horrible noise. A sucking, slippery sound, like a cloak dragging over dried leaves, but not _quite._

And she was so cold.

_“Mum?” she heard her own voice echo. “Mum, what’s wrong?”_

_Her mother was in the kitchen, knuckles white on the edge of the counter. The apple she had been peeling had tumbled to the floor, its shavings drifting down around it like autumn leaves. They were baking a pie, a surprise for her father’s birthday that weekend. Apple pie was his favorite—with extra cinnamon, and the crust just a little burnt around the edges._

_The world stopped. Mum’s hand froze halfway to her head, and Laura saw her fall for what seemed like forever. The bag of flour slipped from her five-year-old hands._

“Mum,” she whispered.

Carmilla’s hand was on her shoulder. “Hey!” Her voice was urgent. The sky was back, the mist gone. “You with me?”

Blinking, Laura nodded on instinct, and then stopped abruptly. She felt like she might throw-up.

“Shit. Stay here,” said Carmilla. She disappeared.

Behind Laura, the door of the pub opened with a creak. Madam Rosmerta peered around, heaved a sigh, and then pushed the door wide. A few nervous students stepped out, looking both ways before rushing off up the street, back towards the castle.

“You alright, there, Miss Hollis?” she jumped. She was surrounded by students, now, pushing and shoving, their faces white with shock. Professor Slughorn was at her side. “Unnerving, that was. Dementors in Hogsmeade… Well, off to the castle, then. All students, back to the castle!” he shouted. “Must be telling Dumbledore about this…” he added to himself. He patted Laura on the shoulder, urging her along and into the crowd.

“Oh, no, I was—”

There was no arguing. The tide of students was flowing up the path, and Slughorn wasn’t the only staff member shepherding them. She caught sight of Hagrid, towering over the crowd down the street, and then passed by Flitwick, who stood atop a barrel at the entrance to the village, offering words of encouragement to everyone that passed.

She hopped on her tiptoes, trying to catch sight of Carmilla over the crowd, but it was no use.

“Laura!” Perry caught her by the arm. “I didn’t think you were coming to Hogsmeade… come on, we need to make sure everyone is up in the Tower. Flitwick told me the Heads of Houses would be making an announcement.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, feel free to share your thoughts below or drop me a line on tumblr: [jg-firefly](https://jg-firefly.tumblr.com/) :)


	11. The Boggart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Laura thinks extra classwork is a good idea, and she learns more than she bargained for. 
> 
> Small warning for homophobic slur.

_Christmas Holidays, 1974 (Fifth Year)_

The weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays were burdened with extra classwork. Professor McGonagall insisted that they all succeed in fully vanishing their mice before the break, as they would be moving on to the complexity of larger mammals in the new term and this would ‘most certainly come up on their O.W.L.s.’ Slughorn, meanwhile, was having them re-brew the Draught of Peace during each Friday’s lesson, and thus far only LaFontaine and Carmilla had succeeded in concocting a mixture he deemed to be of worthwhile quality.

Greenhouse Five was overflowing with the success of their Self-Fertilizing Shrubs (though LaFontaine continued to insist that Carmilla was stunting theirs); Flitwick had moved them on to silencing charms before Laura had fully grasped summoning, something that Perry was still trying to help her remedy with extra practice between classes; History of Magic continued to be mind-numbingly boring, which did not stop Professor Binns from bogging them down with new essays on the Giant Wars every week; and, as always, Professor Durkin continued to drone uselessly about ‘defensive theories’ rather than teaching them any actual wandwork.

It was perhaps because of all of this—without including her extra assignments in Ancient Runes or Care of Magical Creatures—that McGonagall’s eyes narrowed when Laura caught her off-guard with a question after class one day in late November.

“Really, Miss Hollis, do you not already have enough studying to be worrying about?” she asked, peering down over her glasses.

“I do, Professor, of course,” Laura agreed. “But I just… this seems more _useful?”_

She almost expected a stern reprimand regarding the _usefulness_ of her regular coursework, but she did not get one. Instead, McGonagall sighed. Her expression was not unkind.

“This is an entirely normal reaction to an encounter with a Dementor. I am surprised I did not see you weeks ago, to be quite honest. I had several students in my office, at the time.”

This was reassuring. Her next words were not.

“Without a Dementor to practice upon, however, a Patronus is nearly impossible to produce.”

Laura swallowed, pushing at that barest piece of hope. “Nearly?”

McGonagall eyed her, and then plucked her glasses off her nose and gave them a brisk cleaning with a handkerchief that she materialized from thin air. “You _are_ determined, aren’t you?” She took her time gathering a quill, and then scrawled a note on a piece of parchment. “Take this to Professor Durkin. A boggart can _mostly_ recreate the effects. And I can recommend you several books, as well. I warn you, Miss Hollis, this will not be an easy task. It will take rigorous dedication, and a great deal of time.”

Laura nodded hurriedly. “I know.”

“And I would remind you that your regular studies should take priority. There are very few fully fledged witches and wizards who can perform this spell correctly, and it is _not_ something you will be expected to learn for your O.W.L.s.”

“I know, Professor,” she repeated.

“Very well,” McGonagall sighed, “At least involve Miss Perry and Mx. LaFontaine. I’m sure they could benefit as well, and it does no good learning such complex magic alone.”

Laura nodded, clutching the note on her way out of the classroom, but she paused in the doorway. “Professor?”

“Yes, Miss Hollis?”

She hesitated, rewording the question in her mind once more.

“Is there… any reason why a Dementor _wouldn’t_ attack someone? Something that… could be done to repel them _without_ magic?”

McGonagall stared at her for a very long time—long enough that Laura squirmed in place, wondering if the professor could read minds.

“No,” she said at last. “Though, it is impossible to truly understand the motivations of a Dementor. Now, good evening, Miss Hollis.”

Laura collected the books from the library, after she spoke to Durkin. She was not fond of the man, the latest in a string of rather useless Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers (they never seemed to last more than one year), and she had to repeat herself three times and help him find his glasses before she could get him to read the note from McGonagall. At last, he agreed to set up his classroom boggart so that Laura could access it during study hours for practice. He did not request that she be supervised, as Laura imagined McGonagall would have preferred, for which she was grateful.

She also planned to ignore McGonagall’s advice about including her friends. Laura wasn’t particularly looking forward to practicing, and she most certainly did not want an audience when she did. Not when her last encounter had gone the way it had.

Carmilla had been perfectly fine. The Dementor had just _left_. And Laura had been reduced to a mess, calling out for a woman who had been dead for ten years.

_“Can we not talk about it?”_ Carmilla had asked, when Laura finally cornered her after dinner one evening, a week after the ordeal. Laura had not even had a chance to ask, and had still very much wanted to press the issue, but there had been something guarded and fragile in Carmilla’s voice.

Laura had let it go.  

With great reluctance.

“Are you going home for the holidays?” Remus asked, one morning the first week in December. Laura had just joined the Gryffindor table for breakfast, her eyes still bleary from the late night she and LaFontaine had spent finishing essays for Slughorn. Perry had been refusing to help either of them, these days.

Laura shook her head, shoveling bacon onto her plate.

Wordlessly, he slid a copy of _The Daily Prophet_ towards her. The headline took a moment to sink in, and, the moment it did, she recognized that the atmosphere in the Great Hall was heavy. Subdued. No one was laughing or messing about, and the chatter had been reduced to low whispers. Even the Slytherin table was quiet.

_Muggles Slaughtered,_ the paper said. The picture was striking—a decimated house lay, still smoldering, under a terrible image of a smoky skull with a snake curling from its parted jaws.

Laura had seen it before, in pictures just like this one. _The Dark Mark_ , they had called it. No one knew for certain if that was the name Voldemort’s supporters had concocted, or if it had been a moniker from the press, but that hardly mattered.

The attack had occurred in an entirely muggle village, only an hour-long train ride from her family cottage. _Dad’s already in Ireland_ , she reminded herself, chanting the words like a mantra until her pulse calmed. He has sent word just a few days prior. _He’s_ _fine, he’s with Uncle Ted… they’re already working on that new construction project…_

“Dear old cousin Bella,” Sirius muttered, stabbing furiously at the scrambled eggs he was barely eating.

The name jumped off the page at her, listed in the first paragraph of the article as one of the top suspects. “She’s… your cousin?” stammered Laura, frowning. Sirius Black was the one of the last people she would considered Death Eater material. Someone may as well have just insinuated that helpless little Pettigrew was secretly palling around with the likes of Severus Snape.

His scowl was dark. “I do my best to disown the lot of them. Of course, they feel the same about me. Imagine, having a Gryffindor in the family… such a travesty to the Black name.”

“What’s that about Lucius Malfoy?” asked LaFontaine, leaning forward in their seat to read over Laura’s arm. “Wasn’t he a Slytherin Prefect?”

“I remember him,” said Laura at once. “He finished at Hogwarts after our second year. He took ten points from me, once, because I told him a Slytherin tripped me. He said I was lying for attention.”

She found the part that LaF had seen: _Lucius Malfoy, a long-standing friend of the Ministry and a well-known donor to St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, spoke Thursday morning in defense of the Ministry, refuting claims that the very core of the administration had been infiltrated by supporters of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. “These claims are coming from those who wish to sow distrust at a time when we need to work together more than ever. Anyone arguing that the Ministry is compromised, is trying to prevent us from winning this war.” When questioned on whether or not he was directing his accusations at Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Malfoy declined to comment._

“That absolute slug,” LaF declared. “Trying to turn people against _Dumbledore_ of all people.”

“Well, Malfoy _is_ a Death Eater,” Sirius pointed out.

Perry, who looked far more awake than the rest of them, and had been silent thus far, looked up from her plate.

“He is?”

“Of course.” Sirius turned to her. “He’s married to Narcissa—my other lovely cousin, and Bellatrix’s sister. There isn’t a single one of them that _isn’t_ supporting You-Know-Who.”

“So the Ministry really has been infiltrated, then,” Laura said slowly, “And Malfoy is helping pull it off.”

“Probably.”

Laura thought of the headline that had come the morning after the Slytherin versus Hufflepuff match, when Julian Vane and Gabriel Tutwiler had gone missing. Both were Unspeakables in the Department of Mysteries. The news had set off a series of dark rumors, feeding on top of those that were already circulating.

“There was another Dementor sighting, as well,” Potter put in. He reached a long arm across the table to flip through the _Prophet_ , tapping a small article on the fifth page. “There, see?”

“Manchester,” Laura read, shaking her head. “And the Ministry’s still claiming they’ve been sent looking for Death Eaters…”

“As if anyone believes that,” LaFontaine scoffed.

None of their teachers believed it, that was for certain. McGonagall had been clear in her speech to the Gryffindors that evening in the Tower. They were to be on the lookout at all times, they were not to leave the castle alone for any reason, and they were to be escorted to-and-from Herbology. Care of Magical Creatures had been moved from the grounds to a first floor classroom, while Quidditch practices were on a restricted schedule, and conducted under Madam Hooch’s supervision.

At the thought, Laura’s eyes darted up, searching the next table and locating Carmilla at once. She looked pale and uneasy, poking at her breakfast rather than eating it. The Ravenclaws around her seemed to feel about the same. Many heads were resting on hands, and those who were not clustered around a copy of the _Prophet_ had their heads bowed.

As if sensing her gaze, Carmilla lifted her head and stared back. Laura tried for a smile, and was relieved when the other girl at least attempted one in return. The gesture looked like it pained her.  

Laura tilted her head towards the doors to the Entrance Hall, raising a hopeful eyebrow, but the other girl shook her head and turned her attention back to her plate, same as she had every other time Laura had tried to make plans.

Laura’s stomach twisted.

She could tell she was being avoided. She just wished she knew _why_.

\------

Gryffindor lost terribly to Slytherin in their first match of the year.

No one spoke to Laura at breakfast, the morning after the crushing defeat, and she suspected it was not entirely due to the storm cloud hovering over her head. She had let down Gryffindor, and they all knew it.

Captain of the Quidditch team. It was a joke, really. A terrible one, that Danny had played on her out of revenge for losing them the Cup, the year before. She wasn’t _meant_ to be a leader. She was barely meant to be a Keeper, these days. She had let seven Quaffles through. Her new Chasers had barely gotten a single shot, in comparison, and Potter was carrying the team. Even Johnson hadn’t been on his game.

What Laura really wanted, at the moment, was to curse something.

Perry looked up, when Laura stood, but she said nothing and turned back to her porridge.

Carmilla was not at the Ravenclaw table, though several of her teammates were. “Good game, Hollis,” taunted Yeller as she passed. “Hope you put up that same sort of fight in February!”

She ground her teeth and kept walking.

Professor Durkin had stored the boggart in an out-of-use classroom on the third floor. Laura consulted the note she had tucked in the front of one of her many research books to be sure of the room number, meandering down the corridor uncertainly. She had never had a class in this part of the castle before, and none of these rooms were familiar to her. She had just paused to dust off a label on one door when a voice made her jump.

“Ah, Miss Hollis!” declared a portly wizard in the portrait just behind her. His face was red, with round cheeks, and he vaguely resembled an apple. He waved at the door to his right, and the lock clicked audibly.

“Oh… Thank you,” said Laura.

“I will ensure you are not disturbed!” he proclaimed, with a salute and a long draft from his flask.

“…Cool.”

She pushed the door closed behind her, and was couldn’t deny a faint annoyance when she noticed there was a twin portrait on the back wall, and that the portly wizard had followed her. He was none-too-subtly peering around the frame. She rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the trunk sitting in front of the dusty teacher’s desk at the front of the room.

It was ordinary enough—just a brown suitcase with two golden clasps—except that it was rattling slightly.

Laura set her bag on an empty desk, and laid out her books.

“You really _should_ have a spotter,” the portly wizard noted.

“Oh, shut it,” Laura muttered. He gave a loud _harrumph_ and crossed his arms.

She had prepared her happiest memory—it was one of her earliest, from the day she had gone to the fair with both of her parents. She had probably been about four at the time, and as a result the memory was hazy, out-of-focus the way dreams sometimes became in the waking hours that followed. All of Laura’s research suggested that the only requirement was that the memory be happy, not that it be clear.

She thought of the way it had felt to swing between her parents’ arms, licking her mint chocolate ice cream cone, waving from the back of the hay ride wagon, and readied her wand. The latches sprang open at her silent command—and out rose a surprising figure. Not the towering, ghostly shadow of the Dementor she had been bracing for… but the thin figure of a girl.

Carmilla.

Laura’s wand shook, wavering in her grasp.

She had been so ready for a Dementor that she had forgotten this was a boggart. And boggarts were finicky—they chose their form based on someone’s _greatest_ fear, not what that person felt like facing on a given day.

The Carmilla-shaped figure stepped out of the trunk, crossing her arms lazily over her chest, a smirk on her lips. “You were really only interesting when you could play Quidditch,” the boggart said. It didn’t just look like Carmilla—it had her voice as well.

The boggart Laura had faced during third year had been her father, saying he didn’t want a witch for a daughter. She had learned to face that—had learned to turn it on its head, to turn it into the father she knew and loved, who armed her with bear spray to ‘fight that magic stuff.’

This was so much worse.

“And now,” the Carmilla-Boggart continued, “What even are you? You should have heard yourself. _Mum_ , _save me,_ ” she mocked, her voice pitching as though trying to do an impression of Laura. “See, I got what I needed from you. Did you really think I _liked_ you? Hm? Did you think I might… what? Want to _be_ with you?” she laughed.

Laura trembled, her face hot, her eyes pricking. _It’s not real. This is what boggarts do. It’s not_ real.

“With someone as weak as you? Someone who can’t even do basic charms? Someone who’s barely even a witch? And, let’s be real.” She stepped close, hissing her words coldly into Laura’s ear. “Do you seriously think I’m some filthy _dyke_ like you? _”_

“Shut up!” Laura snarled, the response so instinctive that she couldn’t hold it back. She knew she was arguing with a figment, with something that had no actual power over her, but she couldn’t _help_ it. There were tears pricking, hot and angry, in the corners of her eyes.

She had never been ashamed that she liked girls. Never. Even when it had been a question, when it had been confusing and new and she had recalled the opinions of unpleasant neighbors, she had never wished the feelings away. Dad hadn’t even been surprised. He’d been supportive from day one, and Perry and LaFontaine right along with him.

Somehow, the idea of _Carmilla_ mocking her for her feelings bit at something she had never felt in herself.

“ _R-Riddikulus!_ ” she cried, but the boggart merely snapped from in front of her to just over her left shoulder, like it had apparated.

“You don’t belong here, you know. And soon, everyone will know what you are, once you take the O.W.L.s: just a tiny, helpless, _mudblood.”_

“Hey!” snarled a new voice. The boggart spun, and, with a _crack_ it transformed. A shimmering, yellowed orb hung silently in front of her. She frowned. “ _Riddikulus!”_ the same voice said.

The boggart fell, a cockroach on its back, wriggling on the ground at her feet. Remus guided it back into the trunk with a flick of his wand, and locked it shut for good measure.

The younger boy turned back to her, his shoulders rising and falling with his breaths and his eyes huge. He stuffed a thick wad of parchment, which looked as if it had been folded many times, hastily into his back pocket.

“How did _you_ get in here?” the wizard in the portrait cried. Both Remus and Laura ignored him.

“Sorry,” said Remus. “I was passing by, and I thought… I didn’t realize it was a boggart.” He gave his head a shake, his eyes still wide and startled. “I probably should have known.”

“It’s fine. It was… nothing. Thanks for trying to help, I guess.”

There were tears in her eyes, and she didn’t want him to see them.

Remus hovered, uncertain. “She doesn’t think of you like that, you know,” he murmured.

Laura paced to the window, more to hide her face than anything else.

“Right,” she managed. Her pulse was still too quick for comfort, as she mulled over his words. And then she frowned for a different reason, glancing back at him. “Wait, she’s… talked about me? To you?”

She could have imagined it, but she thought she saw Remus give a silent laugh.

“Laura, if I didn’t stop her, I’m fairly certain you are _all_ she would talk about. It’s actually somewhat annoying.”

Laura’s cheeks went pink. “Well,” she said carefully, “She’s been avoiding me for over a month.”

“I never said she wasn’t an idiot,” said Remus. He shook his head. “If you ever want help with the boggart, let me know.”

And then he turned, and was gone.

\------

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” Perry complained.

The holidays had commenced yesterday, and the castle was almost abandoned. They had no classes, and LaFontaine had gone home to be with their parents, which meant Perry had suddenly become _very_ eager to follow Laura everywhere she went—be it the toilets or even the Quidditch pitch.

Since that first night, Laura had succeeded only at getting the boggart to appear in the shape of a Dementor. Her spell-casting had been a complete failure after that, and Remus had been relegated to helping her contain the creature after each failed attempt. For some reason, he came willingly when she asked, and was very friendly about the whole thing. In exchange, she did not ask him why his greatest fear appeared to be the moon (it had shown up three times, now, when the boggart faced him directly).

He had gone off for Christmas with the others, though, heading to the Potters’ place with Sirius and Peter in tow. With Perry as her own personal shadow, Laura had faced the alternatives of not practicing at all, or practicing with Perry. She had chosen the latter.

“Really, Laura, this is impressive. I mean you set this up yourself? And you have _books_ and everything… I’m so proud.”

“Mm-hmm,” Laura hummed, shifting on her feet. She didn’t want to be asked any further questions about her motives.

“A boggart to practice on as a Dementor… it’s brilliant, really. How far have you gotten?”

“Um, not far at all, honestly? I’ve done, y’know, basic research on the spell and Dementors… but I haven’t been able to actual _conjure_ a Patronus. McGonagall wasn’t wrong about this being difficult magic.”

“I’d be amazed if you had,” Perry agreed. “This sort of magic isn’t even in the curriculum. Seventh years can pick it up, from what I understand, as more of a term project than an actual assignment… and most students leave Hogwarts without knowing how to produce one. They’re not very useful, after all, without Dementors floating about. I suppose that’s… _changing_ … now… So, there’s all the more reason to learn it!”

She went first, though Laura would have been surprised if she hadn’t. Unlike Laura, her boggart did not first transform into something else, but appeared immediately as a Dementor, unfurling like smoke up into the air before them. Laura, biting back a tiny surge of jealousy, stepped clear to give her friend the floor.

_“Expecto Patronum!”_ said Perry, enunciating as clearly as if she were using Floo Powder. Nothing happened. The Dementor towered closer as she backed away, giving her wand another flourish. _“Expecto Patronum!”_

Again, nothing. She had nearly backed into Laura, now, and her face had gone a nasty shade of green.

None of Laura’s previous attempts had worked. She raced through her memories, now, settling on the day she had gone to Diagon Alley with her father, eleven years old and just learning she could do magic. How it had felt like there were endless possibilities lined up in front of her.

_“Expecto Patronum!”_ the Dementor swung its great, hooded head in her direction. The tip of her wand glinted silver, and went out, like a failed _Lumos_ charm. The creature paused, and with a sickening twist in her gut, Laura recognized its behavior—distinctly _boggart-like_ , and not at all how a Dementor would regard prey.

It was trying to decide if it should shift forms.

“ _Riddikulus!”_ she cried, switching tactics. It collapsed into an empty cloak, and she tossed it back into the trunk with another flick of her wand.

“That was… horrible,” Perry murmured. She was clutching her chest, her hair slightly frazzled.

“Did you see something?” Laura asked.

Perry frowned and gave her head a little shake. “No, no… I just felt _awful_. I still do, a little… It was like nothing in the world mattered, like I had just realized all the times I was happy were fake…” She shivered. “Do you _see_ something, Laura?”

Laura sat on the edge of one of the desks, toying with her wand. “I saw my mum. The day she died.”

The color slipped from Perry’s face. “Oh, Laura… I’m so sorry. Does it… is it like that, then, every time?”

“No. Just the first time. In Hogsmeade. It was a real one—not a boggart.”

“Before everyone hid in the shops?” demanded Perry, horrified. “Laura, you never told me you actually _faced_ one of them! I thought you had just sheltered with everyone else!”

She had left off that detail, in her re-telling of the story. It had saved her from explaining it, and prevented any chance of Carmilla’s presence being brought up.

“Well, no _wonder_ you want to learn to fight them.”

They packed up, neither having the energy for another round—though Laura and Remus had spent most of their sessions going through about three tries apiece.

Perry, who liked to keep a strict schedule, insisted that they reserve their practice for the evenings. She dragged Laura to the library each morning, as cheery as always while she laid out the ‘lesson plan’ for the day. Laura, who kept hearing the Carmilla-Boggart’s taunting voice telling her she was going to fail the O.W.L.s, kept her protests to a minimum.

Mostly, she missed Quidditch. With the castle nearly abandoned and an icy chill over the grounds, there was no way she was going to be allowed out for a solo flight, and no way she was going to find a teacher willing to give up their evening to babysit her. Even McGonagall had limits on how far she would go for Gryffindor.

Laura could always risk it, of course. It wasn’t as if her late-night visits to the pitch had ever been _allowed_.

Yet, she did not go; not the first day, nor the second. It was the third, two days before Christmas, before Laura glanced out the library window and saw a moving shape, a small, black dot cut out against the pale sky.

Laura checked her watch.

She cleared her throat. “I’m gonna go grab a snack.”

“Uh-huh,” Perry muttered, not looking up from her work. She was labeling a very detailed star map, and there were flecks of red ink on her cheek, like especially vivid chicken pox. Laura didn’t pause to comment. She held her breath until she was through the doors and dashing down the corridor.

The air was crisp with winter, and the ground thick with a new dusting of snow that had fallen that weekend, but Laura didn’t mind. She tucked her scarf tightly up around her chin on her way across the grounds, her eyes locked on the pitch.

There was another reason she had not slipped out to play.

“Carmilla!”

The other girl slowed her flight, dipping low to skim the grass and come to a halt, hovering just in front of Laura. Her eyes were wide, her hair billowing freely over her shoulders.

“Laura? Wh-what are you doing out here?”

She laughed, the sound nervous and sharp. It echoed. “Um, the same thing you are?”

“They told us to stay in the castle,” said Carmilla. She was still frowning.

Laura, an eyebrow raised, kicked off to put herself level with Carmilla. She circled her slowly. “Again… you’re here, too?”

Carmilla looked down and gave her head a little shake. “Right. I was just…”

“Breaking the rules?” Laura teased. Carmilla said nothing, and Laura’s pulse hummed with fresh uncertainty, thumping behind her ears. She circled closer. “Okay, fine,” she declared, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I’m just going to ask: what’s wrong? I know we haven’t been able to sneak out recently, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still tell you’re avoiding me. And everything was fine before those Dementors showed up in Hogsmeade, so I can’t help but think it’s something to do with _me_.”

The other girl’s mouth had been open, preparing to answer, right up until Laura’s last word. She snapped it shut with an audible click, her shoulders stiffening and her eyebrows twitching together.

“With _you?”_ she stammered. “How can you—what do you think _you_ did?”

They had drifted low, now, both of their feet brushing the field.

“I don’t know,” sighed Laura. She couldn’t meet Carmilla’s eyes. “I was just… really messed up. And _you_ —you were completely fine.”

“Laura,” Carmilla said firmly. It took Laura a long moment to lift her head, and when she did, she found the other girl’s dark stare waiting earnestly. She shook her head. “I was not fine.”

“You weren’t?”

Carmilla sucked in a breath, glancing to the side and giving her head another fraction of a shake. “Not at all,” she said, and her voice shuddered. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it—but that was because of _me_. Not you.”

“Then… why have you been avoiding me?”

Carmilla reached up to scrub a hand through her untidy hair. “Because I didn’t want to talk about it,” she repeated.

Laura swallowed. “ _Carm_ , I wouldn’t have said anything; not after you asked me not to.”

The nickname took them both by surprise. Carmilla’s eyebrows lifted, and Laura blushed.

“But, did you—I mean, you don’t want to talk about it, _now_ , do you?”

Carmilla shook her head.

“Okay. Can we just… go back to normal, then? Please?”

Something crossed Carmilla’s expression like a shadow, her features sharp and pale. “Laura… why did you really come out here, today?”

She tilted her head uncertainly, a shiver cutting through her. There was no way Carmilla knew how she felt. Was there? “I—I wanted to talk to you, and I figured this might be the only chance to get you alone.”

“What did you want to talk _about_ , though?”

“This,” she said. “Us. I mean, y’know, how things weren’t okay.” She was stammering, very aware of the way Carmilla’s stare was piercing through her, searching for… _something_. “I didn’t like it.”

“That’s all?”

There was definitely a flush rising in her chest. Her ears were hot, and she hoped her hair was hiding them well enough to keep Carmilla’s suspicions down.

“Yeah. We’re—we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Slowly, Carmilla nodded.

“Well, then… I’m allowed to care if things are messed up between us. Because we’re friends. And that’s—that’s what friends do.”

If Carmilla found anything odd about this, she did not call Laura out on it. She nodded, and then leaned back, rising a few meters up into the air. “So. Did you want to… practice?”

Laura’s relief was instantaneous, her smile spreading wide. “Yes. Yes—definitely. But I also, um, I had something for you.”

Carmilla’s eyebrows rose. She dropped back level with Laura, circling her slowly.

“Um, here.”

She dug a small box out of her inner robe pocket, thrusting it out into the air between them. Carmilla had to fly close—very close—to collect it. Their fingers brushed, and Laura’s hand lingered in midair for a lengthy beat after Carmilla had pulled away.

It was poorly wrapped, merely packaged in a page from the _Daily Prophet_ rather than in actual gift paper. Laura bit her lip as she watched Carmilla’s fingers nimbly pull apart the spell-o-taped edges.

Carmilla pulled out the necklace by its chain, the pendant dangling as she lifted it in front of her face.

She frowned.

“It’s a Quaffle,” she said.   

Laura tucked her hair behind her ear. “Yeah. You don’t have to wear it, or anything. I just wanted to get you something. For—for Christmas.”

“I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s okay; I didn’t expect you to get me anything. I just—I always get something for my friends.”

Carmilla blinked at the pendant again. It swiveled in front of her, suddenly seeming cheap and foolish. Laura didn’t know what she’d been thinking—why she had expected Carmilla to want it.

“If you don’t like it, that’s fine. I picked it up in Hogsmeade, and it wasn’t—I mean you can return it. Or just not wear it... It’s really fine.”

Carmilla shuffled on her broom, adjusting her feet and carefully removing her grip from the handle. With shaking hands, she undid the clasp, tugged her hair over her shoulder, and affixed the chain about her neck.

The pendant fell neatly against her chest.

She met Laura’s nervous gaze, her eyes gleaming.

“I love it.”

\------

It was the following night that Laura finally found success with the Dementor training.  

Perry wasn’t even jealous, she was so in awe of the silvery, shapeless mass that had burst free of Laura’s wand and hit the Dementor full-force.

“What memory did you use?” she asked, as if hoping to pick up tips.

Laura merely shook her head, her smile controlled. She wasn’t about to share. “Oh, it was… nothing specific. Maybe it’s just the holidays, you know. The happy spirit.”

“Well, you did seem cheerful at dinner,” Perry conceded.

She squared off with the trunk and flicked her wand.

The Dementor rose back into the room, giving Perry it’s full attention while Laura leaned against the wall in the back corner, wand held loosely at her side. Perry tried three times, the Dementor advancing ever-nearer, and none of her declarations produced so much as a wisp.

A clawed hand slipped free of the cloak, reaching out towards her face… and Laura jumped in between.

The boggart hesitated too long, pulling up short in its Dementor form, trying to read what would most traumatize her at the moment. She felt a fresh surge of triumph.

_“Expecto Patronum,”_ she snapped, without thinking about much of anything. The silver mist launched itself at the creature without hesitation, and Laura blinked as the boggart tumbled over backwards, tripping on its robes, her focus instead on the Patronus. It had legs, and a head, and a long tail—but it was gone into nothingness before she could recognize the animal.

“We should go back to the tower,” she urged Perry, once she had secured the boggart once more. The other girl was trembling, her cheeks slick with tears. She had entirely missed Laura’s second success, and Laura was not about to brag.

Perry didn’t protest as she was guided through the winding castle corridors, Laura side-eyeing her nervously as the increasing weight of the silence bore on her. She had never see Perry like this—not in the five years she had known her.

The common room was mercifully empty, just as it had been for most of the holidays. Laura hurried to prod the fire with her wand, urging it to a merry crackle. She settled Perry in the squishiest of the armchairs and rifled through her bag, coming up with a half-eaten bar of chocolate, which she handed over at once.

Mechanically, Perry chewed on it, staring at the fire.

Slowly, the color returned to her face. “I don’t even know what we’re fighting about, anymore,” she murmured. “I haven’t got a clue. And the things I’ve done—I yelled at them, over some stupid dinner party… said horrible things.”

Laura didn’t have to ask to know she was speaking about LaFontaine.

“I’ve ruined everything,” whispered Perry. “I thought I was losing them, and I then I went and made it happen, all on my own.”

“Hey, LaF will come around. Maybe if you… if you apologize, they’ll want to talk about it. You’ve both done things you regret. What really matters is that you two… care about each other.”

“And what if how I care about LaFontaine… isn’t the same as the way they care about me?” Perry challenged. Her voice had gone very small.

Laura sighed. That was the real question, wasn’t it?

“This is good,” sighed Perry, staring at the remains of the chocolate bar. Some of it had melted on her fingers, but she didn’t seem bothered. “Is it from Honeyduke’s?”

“It’s muggle chocolate,” said Laura, smiling faintly.

“It’s impressive. I’d almost think it had magical properties—I do feel much better. That could be the fire, though.”

“Actually,” said Laura, pleasantly surprised to find that she knew something Perry did not, “Chocolate is a natural remedy against Dementors.”

“Fantastic,” said Perry, taking another bite. “Shame it can’t be used to ward them off, like garlic against vampires. Would save us a lot of trouble, really.”

Laura felt a very sudden chill.

“Perry…” she began. Her next words were slow, measured. “Dementors only go after things that have souls, right?”

“Hm?” Perry looked away from the chocolate. “Oh, yes. They can’t really see, after all. Not the way we can.”

“So, how exactly would a Dementor react to someone… without a soul?” Her mouth had gone very dry. “Like, say, a vampire?”

At this, Perry frowned. “That’s an excellent question. I mean, I _imagine_ it would be like coming up on a wall. Though, they may be able to sense that there was a being, there—they can hear sounds well enough—or perhaps they would be natural enemies, it’s hard to be sure with dark creatures. You could always ask Professor Durkin, I bet he’d know.”

She went back to eating the chocolate, and then shuffled off to bed a few minutes later, seeming in much better spirits as she wished Laura a Happy Christmas Eve through a yawn.

Laura muttered a reply, her eyes not leaving the fire.

She had just had a terrible thought.


	12. The More You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Laura muses on her theory... and big decisions are made.

_Winter of 1975 (Fifth Year)_

It snowed heavily, the first week in February. The Hogwarts grounds were coated in more snow than Laura had ever seen, and Herbology lessons were cancelled while pathways were carved and the greenhouse roofs were cleared of their dangerous loads.

Rumors had circulated quickly about Greenhouse Two caving in, with the second years’ mandrakes perishing in the avalanche, but Laura was unable to tell the accuracy of this from merely peering over the parapet outside the Owlery. She did have a fairly decent view of the tunnel Filch was attempting to dig, however. He was surrounded by four-meter tall walls of snow on either side. They kept collapsing behind him, leaving him perpetually stranded and increasingly irate.

“You know, it’s not nice to laugh at others’ misfortunes,” Carmilla commented blithely. She had her back to the grounds, her arms braced out on the stones and her ankles crossed. She smirked at Laura as she pulled back from the overlook.

“It’s _Filch_ ,” Laura argued. “He once told me he missed hanging students by their toes, because he had ‘so enjoyed the screams.’ And I was a _first year_.”

Carmilla chuckled, shaking her head. While Laura had bundled up, her chin tucked into her Gryffindor scarf and her fingers lost in thick, raspberry-pink mittens, Carmilla had barely bothered to throw on a light parka. Her neck was bare—save for her Quaffle necklace—and the whole of her pale profile was hazy against the white backdrop.

_I bet vampires don’t get cold._

“You have a fair point,” Carmilla mused. She turned in place, the pirouette putting her shoulder-to-shoulder with Laura, and glanced down. “I wonder how much faster that would go if McGonagall just went out there and flicked her wand.”

“Hey, now, don’t say that too loud. Wouldn’t want anyone getting ideas. I’m still hoping we’ll get tomorrow off Herbology, too.”

Carmilla scoffed. “I don’t think we’ll ever be that lucky. But hey, if we are, maybe we should use the free time to trek to the nearest muggle village and buy one of those lottery tickets you were telling me about.”

Laura bumped her shoulder into Carmilla’s. “I don’t think they take silver sickles.”

“Hm. Well, we’ll have to improvise, then.” She quirked an eyebrow. “How difficult do you think it would be to swipe a few?”

“You know, Carm, it’s not very nice to steal,” Laura teased.

“We’ll obviously pay them back after we _win.”_

Laura laughed. “Okay, I think I need to remind you about that whole ‘odds’ part.”

“Oh, no, I remember. But we just determined that, in this scenario, we would be _unbelievably_ lucky. Ergo, we would clearly win. How much do these things pay, anyway?”

“Most likely around one hundred thousand pounds or so.” At Carmilla’s blank look, Laura added, “Like thirty thousand galleons.”

Carmilla’s eyes went wide. “Now you’re talking.”

Laura watched Filch progress another few meters, the walls around him managing to stay upright. He was about halfway to the greenhouses, now, where Hagrid was using an oversized tree branch to swipe snow off the glass.

“What would you buy?” Laura asked curiously. “Y’know. If you had that kind of money?”

Carmilla mused for a minute, resting her elbows on the parapet and stretching out her legs behind her like a cat. “Hm. A little flat in London, over Diagon Alley. Books. _Lots_ of books… and an owl.” She stared longingly at the birds circling the Owlery, and the ones ruffling their feathers in the gaping windows of the tower. “I’ve always wanted an owl.”

She glanced at Laura as if just realizing the very personal nature of this admittance, and then cleared her throat.

“Anyway. What about you?”

“Well, I think I’d give most of it to my Dad. But, I’d like a new broom—I mean, I love mine, and my Dad got it for me, so I’ll probably keep it forever regardless… but what I wouldn’t give for a racing model, like the ones the Harpies ride… Oh! And I would keep enough that I could buy everything on the Trolley. Just… all of it. One time. To know what that was like.”

Carmilla laughed. “You would. And then you’d get a stomach ache trying to eat it all yourself.”

“Hey, now. I’d share. C’mon, what’s your favorite sweet? I’ll make a note—then I can get extras.”

There was a flash of something in Carmilla’s eyes—some emotion that was gone too quickly for Laura to properly label—and then she shrugged, as languid and collected as ever. “Peppermint Toads are okay, I guess.”

“What, no Bertie Bott’s?”

Carmilla’s expression soured, her nose wrinkling. “I’ll have you know I got a dog drool one of those as a kid, and I swore I’d never risk it again. It _looked_ like coconut. It even _smelled_ faintly like coconut.” She shuddered. “It was not coconut.”

Laura had to cover her mouth with her hands to muffle her laughter, her shoulders shaking.

“Yeah, yeah, don’t hurt yourself, there, creampuff,” Carmilla muttered. She was smiling, though.

“I mean I don’t _blame_ you,” Laura managed, her voice still slightly on edge and breathless. “But ‘dog drool’ seems like a very _specific_ flavor to… to _recognize._ I mean, how would you even..?”

“There was a texture, okay? And a smell that didn’t exactly come until _after_ I had bitten into the—okay, you know what, I take it back, I don’t want you knowing this story.”

Laura had dissolved into another fit of laughter, slumping against the outer wall of the Owlery and clutching at her sides.

“I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “It’s just… your _face_ when you said it, and your expressions... you tell it like a war story. How old were you, anyways?”

Carmilla crossed her arms. “I was five. _Maybe_ six. And we had a cocker spaniel that happened to drool quite a lot.”

That was all it took.

Laura’s laughter pulled up short, like someone had slammed on the brakes. The last of it caught as a hiccup in her throat.

There was a great deal that she knew about Carmilla, these days: How she could name every star in the major constellations without blinking. How she spent her free time engineering a hybrid locator charm for some project Remus and his friends were working on. How frustrated she got when anything did not come innately to her—though almost everything seemed to. How she loved philosophy and could spend hours prattling on about ancient men and theories that Laura did not understand (but she listened anyway, nodding along just to see the way Carmilla smiled).

In all of this, the question of Carmilla’s family had never come up.

Laura had not pushed—had not seen it as her place to drag the details from her.

She knew, all too well, how that felt.

Now, she held her breath, her teeth digging into the inside of her lower lip. She had no idea what to say—there was no question she could ask, no segue she could take—and it was unclear if Carmilla had meant to reveal that detail or not. She was staring out across the grounds with a faraway look in her eyes.

Laura had thought a great deal about Carmilla’s past, in recent weeks. She could not ask, could not be sure, but she suspected that Carmilla being a vampire was tied to the reason she lived in an orphanage. It made Laura’s heart ache, to think of Carmilla facing all of that alone—only talking about it in brief, uncertain spurts, like she were afraid even a mention would drive Laura away.

 _“It’s not like we’re going on field trips every other week,”_ she had mumbled, once, when Laura expressed her astonishment that Carmilla had lived in London for years and never been to the Globe.

It left Laura with a thousand questions; none of which she dared voice.  

“My mum died when I was five,” Laura blurted. Her horror rose as swiftly as her blush, but it didn’t stop the rest of her thoughts from tumbling free: “I don’t like to talk about it, and I hate it when people ask, so I never—I mean, that’s why I never ask about yours. Your parents. And you… you don’t have to say anything, now. This isn’t me trying to guilt you into talking, or anything. I just—I thought you should know.”

Carmilla had turned to face her in the midst of her babbling, and was now chewing on her lip.

Laura desperately wished she had just stayed quiet.  

Carmilla’s eyes shimmered, and she blinked several times in rapid succession. “I—I can’t talk about it.”

“And that’s fine!” Laura rushed, her hand flying out and landing on top of Carmilla’s with a hurried squeeze. The other girl glanced down at the contact, and then back up at Laura. They both froze.

Laura slipped back, letting her hand settle on the stone a respectable distance away. Even inside the mitten, her palm tingled with phantom warmth.

“That’s fine,” she repeated in calmer tones. “You don’t have to say anything. And if you did, of course I would listen, but I just—I know what it’s like, having people pry at your life. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Carmilla’s fingers twitched, her eyes back on the hand that Laura had grabbed.

“Oh! Laura… hi.”

She jumped and spun in place. Beside her, Carmilla was still, her eyes darting once to the Owlery and then hurriedly to her own shoes.

Davie and Melanie were hovering awkwardly in the archway. Melanie was clutching a letter, and Davie was scrubbing the back of his neck with a gloved hand, obviously flustered.

“We, uh, didn’t think anyone would be up here this early.”

Melanie hit him lightly on the shoulder, jutting her chin out with a meaningful look and tugging him into the Owlery. Laura, her ears tingling, could hear them whispering rapidly to one another. A moment later, an oversized barn owl took off in flurry of feathers.

“Bye!”

“See you at practice, Laura!”

Laura cleared her throat. “Right, yes, bye!” she managed to croak after them. They were already gone by the time her words had reverberated back off the stone.

Beside her, Carmilla kicked at a chunk of ice, her lips pursed.

“We should go,” she muttered, with a shrug, “Before anyone else sees us.”

“Right,” Laura agreed, shoving her hands deep into her pockets. Her breath slipped out hot, billowing into a cloud. “I mean, I don’t think they’re going to go around telling people we’re friends or anything. If you’re worried.” She shrugged, “Davie and Melanie are okay. But, I could… I could talk to them. If you wanted.”

Carmilla hunched her shoulders, traipsing down the stairs. “If it matters to you. They’re your friends, not mine.”

“Oh. Right. I just—I meant, I didn’t know if you were worried about it—getting back to _your_ friends.”

Carmilla stopped, and Laura nearly ran into her back. She turned in the narrow spiral, looking up at Laura with a frown. The angle was new, and unexpected. Their place on the stairs put Laura a head taller than Carmilla—a view she was entirely unfamiliar with.

Her hair looked very soft today.

(Not that it didn’t always _._ )

 _“My_ friends?” Carmilla echoed.

Laura cleared her throat, setting one foot back on the stair behind her in a half-hearted attempt to increase the distance between them (and maybe rescue her heart from the cliff’s edge it appeared to be racing towards).

“Um, yeah. You said—we talked about how we didn’t want our friends to think we were cool, now. With your reputation, or whatever, and my friends being so…” she didn’t have a good word. She shrugged helplessly.

“We never had this conversation,” said Carmilla.

“What? Of course we did.” Laura raced back in her memory, to the first night of the school year, “We met at the pitch. I said I didn’t care what my friends thought, and you argued, and we agreed we would just leave everyone out of it.”

“No,” Carmilla insisted, shaking her head, “I said that _your_ friends would care, and you _agreed with that_ , and told me you didn’t want them to find out.”

Laura sputtered. “But you—you _definitely_ didn’t want—I thought you said—” she let out a dramatic huff, stomping in place like a toddler, “You’re not making _sense.”_

Carmilla clenched her jaw, glaring at a spot on the wall. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Ask your friends to keep their mouths shut. Or don’t. I don’t care.”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Laura snapped, catching hold of Carmilla’s shoulder as the other girl started to descend the stairs. “You can’t just drop that information and then _walk away.”_

“Why?” the question was a challenge, and it glinted like fire in Carmilla’s eyes as she finally looked back at Laura.

“Because,” Laura argued, “We have class together. And meals. And study breaks.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , I’m tired of pretending not to like you whenever we’re not alone! And sure, it might be easy to lie to LaF and Perry while they’re too busy making out in every corner of the common room, but that doesn’t mean I like it. In fact, it’s awful. And so is not talking to you when we’re literally sharing a workbench in Herbology.”

She leveled her stare on Carmilla, struggling a moment to catch her breath.

“You—you do still consider us friends, right?”

The question seemed to astonish Carmilla. She leaned backwards, gripping the handrail as she raised an eyebrow. She nodded carefully, the way someone might nod if they weren’t quite sure they had heard the question right, but were going on about eighty percent confidence.

Laura blew out a breath, “Then I want you to help me in Potions. Because I’m going to fail.”

Carmilla stared.

“That—that was a very abrupt change of topic,” Carmilla managed. Her voice was uneven, and her left eyebrow seemed to have permanently affixed itself halfway up her forehead.

“Nope. It’s highly relevant. I’m cashing in the favor you owe me.”

“…The favor?”

“For all the free Quidditch lessons,” Laura explained, nodding sagely, “I think I deserve some Potions tutoring.”

Carmilla’s lip twitched. “And for that I am being shackled to your desk in the dungeon, I assume?”

“Yes.”

Carmilla made a little humming noise, and started down the stairs again. Laura followed, her heart still working overtime.

When they reached the bottom, Carmilla nodded towards her path back to Ravenclaw Tower, a soft smirk playing across her features. “So. I guess I’ll see you in class, then,” she said.

 _With my friends_ , Laura finished in her head.

She nodded at once. “Yes. Yes, you will.”

It took every fiber of Laura’s being not to sink up against the nearest wall until she was around a corner and safely out of sight.

///

The Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor game arrived before their next Potions lesson, and Laura was almost grateful not to run into Carmilla the morning of the match. She was certain the words ‘good luck’ would have crossed her lips, if she had, and she already felt like a bad enough captain as it was—she didn’t need to add ‘actively hoping for the success of a rival’ to her list of things to feel guilty over.

“We have a lot to make up for,” she said shortly, clasping her hands together in the Gryffindor changing rooms. The team was huddled around, already cloaked in scarlet. Their expressions, like her own, were grim. “We have trained hard,” she said, wishing it didn’t sound like she were trying to convince herself, “And we are _better_ than they are. I want us to show them—and the school—what we’re made of.

“Johnson, don’t hesitate if you see the Snitch. We need a win, right now, more than we need to risk tacking on extra points. We can play that hand against Hufflepuff, but only if we succeed here. Carter, Pearce, remember the plan. Stick to mid-field, and go for the Quaffle. Potter, take point. Chester, Gambol, follow his lead, and watch for Bludgers.

“Let’s do this.”

They broke, though the only one who showed her any kind of support was LaFontaine, who offered a cheery thumbs-up. Laura did not share their excitement.

With good reason.

It took approximately three minutes before Melanie was carried off the field, sporting a broken arm. Dale Perkins shot Laura a cruel grin as he curled past the Gryffindor hoops.

“I can do you next, if you like!” he called, twirling his Beater’s bat.

“Maybe you should guard your own damn players!” Laura snarled back, gesturing furiously up the pitch to where Carmilla had just been forced to dodge _both_ Bludgers.

Pearce and LaFontaine were getting revenge for Carter, and Laura’s blood felt hot with guilt for wanting to call them off.

A whistle blew, and she scrunched up her face in frustration as Madam Hooch ordered the penalty.

Laura fumed at herself. She almost _never_ swore. LaFontaine teased her for it, Perry called it ‘honorable,’ and Carmilla thought it was ‘cute.’ (She had said so. Laura still didn’t know what to make of that.)

In the stands, the Gryffindors booed. Laura wished she thought they were booing the call, rather than her.

When the Quaffle was tossed into Carmilla’s arms for the penalty shot, Laura’s already low spirits plummeted. There wasn’t any good way this could end. Her thoughts were already racing frantically through the potential outcomes—what if Carmilla showed her up and she entirely lost the respect of not only her team but the whole of Gryffindor (and the school)? What if she played _well_ and Carmilla got mad at her, or accused her of being too cocky? She’d practically already made the claim, and it wouldn’t be too much of a leap—

The Quaffle landed in her gloves with a thud. She had dove to the right hoop without thinking, her body taking over where her mind had left off.

Laura’s startled gaze jumped from the ball up to the girl that had thrown it.

Carmilla tipped her head, tapping her forehead with two fingers in a mock salute. Her smirk said _this isn’t over_ in all of the best, most playful ways.

Laura’s heart did what should have been an anatomically impossible summersault in her chest.

“Hollis!” Potter shrieked, almost falling off his broom as he swept by with his arms swinging madly, “Throw the damn Quaffle!”

_Right. The match._

She threw him the Quaffle, and he pelted off up the pitch, a gorgeous raven-haired girl in blue on his tail.

Now was definitely not the time to be having this thought… but, then again, when had her intrusive daydreams about Carmilla ever been polite, or timely?

She _really_ wanted to kiss her.

It was helpful for Laura’s wandering mind that Carmilla spent the majority of the game in possession of the Quaffle. It meant that Laura’s attention, across the next two hours, was usually where it was supposed to be. In fact, it wasn’t until the other girl chucked the Quaffle to Darby—the new third-year Chaser—that Ravenclaw managed to put any points on the board.  

Laura cursed the miss (internally this time), and scanned the pitch for the Seekers. They were still making their slow laps of the pitch, high over everyone’s heads. There had been no sign of the Snitch, yet.

Gryffindor was up by fifty points, but Laura hardly felt like it mattered. In Danny’s era, they would have had more by this time and everyone would have been flying cohesively. They would have been sticking to the plan—a tangible, well-practiced plan—following Danny with the sort of implicit trust that Laura had never inspired in anyone. The majority of today’s game had been spent shuffling the Quaffle back and forth uselessly.

Potter’s windswept hair looked less effortless and more haphazard when Ravenclaw called a timeout and both teams dropped to huddle on the snowy field.

“At this rate, we’ll be here until nightfall,” LaFontaine complained, “And _you_ keep almost hitting me! Stay on your own side of the pitch! I told you, Karnstein is _mine.”_

Davie glared, his mouth twisting into a snarl. Laura cut in before he could spit out an inevitable retort.  

“Leave Karnstein alone.” She ignored the aghast look on LaFontaine’s face, “I want you on the goalposts, helping us score. Pearce, get up in Perkins’ business. I don’t want him getting any more shots. Potter, we need more points. You’re favoring your left; switch it up. Johnson… for Merlin’s sake, find the Snitch.”

Another hour ticked past. Potter scored on two fouls they were granted for Bludgers shot directly at Laura (both missed), and by noon it had begun to snow again, just as Gryffindor reached an eighty point lead. Carmilla had gotten her first goal past Laura, solely because Laura had been distracted; the Seekers had gone into a frantic diving match, racing the Snitch. Johnson had nearly had it, but a Bludger from the Ravenclaws had forced him to dodge off course, and the Snitch had been lost in the chaos.

The only good that had come from it was that Martin had berated Perkins in the time-out that followed. He had very nearly taken her out with his stunt, and she was very interested in keeping her limbs intact, from what Laura overheard of her shouts.

She smirked at Perkins, as they rose back into the air to resume play. He glowered, shot another Bludger at her, and earned Gryffindor another ten points. Martin’s face was nearly purple with fury when she swept by.

Laura was about to gloat, about to call something cheery at Perkins about the rulebook, when a gasp swept through the pitch, the sound as distinctive as a cringe.

She caught sight of a plummeting figure just as Hooch’s whistle shrieked.

 _Carmilla_.

Laura was gone from her post before her thoughts had even caught up with what was happening, arriving on the field only moments after Carmilla’s body had rolled to a stop. Her broom was in tatters, the handle ripped messily in half and tail twigs strewn about. They crunched under Laura’s scrambling boots.

“Carm!” Laura gasped. She tossed her own broom aside, dropping to her knees.

Carmilla was splayed in the snow, her limbs askew and her eyes closed. Her lips were parted, and the snow under her head was blotched with red.

Several dull thuds around them indicated the arrival of teammates—her own or Carmilla’s she did not know or care. Hooch pushed her way through the throng just as Carmilla’s eyelashes fluttered.

The world froze. Laura’s heart stuttered back to life.

“Well, that was a kick,” Carmilla muttered, tenderly touching the side of her head, where a large welt was already forming. She grimaced, “Ow. Okay, more than a kick.”

“ _Carm_. Are you okay?”

“Alright, give her some space, everyone back up—back up, I said!” 

Hooch had cleared a path for Madam Pomfrey, who joined Laura at Carmilla’s side and began fussing at once.

“Anything broken?” the nurse demanded, her hands quick and demanding as they seized Carmilla’s wrists and searched their way up to her shoulders. She turned Carmilla’s head with a touch to her chin and scowled at the bruise there. A thick trail of blood was working its way down Carmilla’s cheek, smearing in her hair.

She was icy pale. Paler than Laura had ever seen her. Veins stood out black in her neck.

A shudder wracked her slender shoulders.

“Hospital Wing,” Pomfrey barked. Carmilla started to push herself upright, and the nurse’s eyes blazed, “Sit, sit! For heaven’s sake, why do they _always_ try to walk…”

She conjured a stretcher with a quick flourish. Carmilla shot it a dark look… and then turned her head back towards Laura.

Their gazes connected, and Laura was suddenly aware that she was gripping Carmilla’s arm. Her knuckles were white, the desperation tight in her muscles, and it took great effort for her to relinquish the hold as Pomfrey urged the other girl onto the stretcher.

Carmilla kept staring at her.

Laura kept staring back.

She only looked away when Dumbledore himself appeared between them, severing the connection and drawing all of Laura’s attention simultaneously.

“I will accompany you,” he declared in that breathy way of his that no one ever questioned. Madam Pomfrey nodded primly, and it was Dumbledore himself who hovered the stretcher to life and marched them away and out of the pitch.

Laura could hardly breathe.

She had halfway risen, halfway edged herself towards following, when a hand landed on her shoulder.

“You have a game to finish, I believe, Miss Hollis.”

It was Professor McGonagall. Laura had not noticed her arrival, though she supposed she had not noticed much of anything happening around her.

Full awareness of her surroundings returned with a pop, like the adjusting of eardrums at changing altitudes. Everything was, all at once, exceptionally loud and bright.

And, she realized, there were a _lot_ of eyes on her. LaFontaine, Carter, Potter—they were all standing by, uncertain and gaping. The Ravenclaws watched with narrowed eyes, a few of them muttering to one another.

McGonagall’s grip on her shoulder squeezed. “She’ll be fine,” she promised, and her voice had a tenderness to it that Laura had never heard.

With a shaky nod, Laura stepped towards her fallen broom. The crowd rolled back like a tide to let her through.

“Um, Laura?” LaFontaine began hesitantly.

“Carter’s back in,” Laura said stiffly. She couldn’t look at her friend, their Beater’s bat still dangling in their grip. “Let’s finish the match.”

No one questioned the order. Melanie, her arm healed and her energy restored, hopped on her broom and soared up with the rest of the starters.

LaFontaine traipsed to the sidelines alone.

Carmilla’s back-up was a poor replacement. He could barely keep hold of the Quaffle long enough to make it to the hoops, leaving Yeller and Darby to take most of the shots. It didn’t matter, though; Laura’s raging pulse made her reflexes quicker, rather than pulling them off-course. She batted the Quaffle away with ease, her eyes still blazing and her shoulders tense.

She could feel the threat of tears in the back of her throat, but they did not rise any further, and, after twenty score-free minutes, Johnson caught the Snitch.

Laura had never cared less about a victory.

She did not change with the team. She tossed her broom into its storage slot and breezed straight through and onto the grounds, ignoring the nervous looks that followed her.

The crowd was cheery, on the way back up to the castle. The Gryffindors were waving their banners and chanting the final score (260-20), and none of them seemed the least bit concerned about the Ravenclaw Chaser that had been mowed down to make way for the victory. Even the Ravenclaws did not seem as affected as Laura thought they should be—every snippet of conversation that Laura overheard was a lament over the loss, rather than concern for the health of their best player.

By the time she arrived at the Entrance Hall, her fury had tripled, throbbing in her chest like a caged animal. Her ribs felt tight, constricting, and her pulse was pounding in her ears, drowning out everything else.

She didn’t hear someone calling her name until a hand had caught her by the wrist and drawn her to a startled halt.

“Laura,” said Remus.

She was one turn away from the Hospital Wing, her breaths coming in furious pants, and she glared as she jerked her arm free of his grasp.

“You can’t see her,” he warned, as she started forward once more.

She did not stop, but she did slow her pace, allowing him to match her stride up the corridor.

“Like hell,” she muttered.

He shook his head, “Dumbledore’s orders. They aren’t going to let you in.”

They rounded the corner. The Hospital Wing doors _were_ closed—a sight Laura had never witnessed—and she froze in place, ice creeping down her spine.

“Why not?” she bit out, spinning on Remus with venom that she knew, somewhere, in the back of her mind, that he did not deserve.

“Dumbledore’s orders,” he repeated.

There was a cave-in, in her chest. Her eyes darting back and forth between Remus and the doors. “She’s—she’s _okay_ , right? She was fine on the pitch—she was talking and everything, she can’t be—”

“She’s going to be fine,” he assured. His eyes, usually sharp in their paleness, were cloudy. He was pale in a sickly, weak sort of way.

“And how do you know that?” she challenged. “Did they let _you_ in?”

He hesitated, not meeting her eyes, “Dumbledore told me, on his way back to his office.”

Laura let this sink in, for a lengthy beat, and then stormed forward and threw her fist repeatedly against the locked mahogany doors.

If there was one authority figure she trusted implicitly, it was Dumbledore. Even his word, though, could not take away her desperation to see Carmilla with her own two eyes. She doubted there was anything that could do that.

It was a long moment before the door creaked open, and even then it was only just enough for Madam Pomfrey to peer down her nose at Laura. Laura could not see past her, though she tried.

“I want to see Carmilla,” she demanded, her arms crossed and her expression grim with defiance. She was aware that she was being petulant, that she looked the very picture of the child that had told her father she would not eat asparagus no matter how he dressed it.

She did not care.

“Miss Karnstein is not accepting visitors.”

Laura scowled, “Well, when _will_ you let me see her?”

“You may see her once she is released,” Pomfrey snipped back, her glare never faltering.

“And when will _that_ be?”

She was wearing on Pomfrey’s patience, and she knew it. The woman sniffed, “I’m afraid that is none of your business. Now, off you go, Miss Hollis. And you, Mr. Lupin.”

She shut the door smartly in Laura’s face. For a long moment, all she could do was stare. She did not step back, though the wood was mere inches from her nose.

“C’mon,” said Remus, tugging at her elbow.

Laura almost caved. Almost trailed after him back up to Gryffindor Tower.

But they would be celebrating, there; they would be drinking Firewhisky and chanting her name and raving about their chances of taking home the Cup this year.

Everyone would be _happy_.

And Laura was not happy.

She felt like there was a pit opening in her gut.

“No,” she muttered. She pressed her back into the wall beside the great, closed doors and let herself slide down onto the floor.

Remus raised an eyebrow, “What are you doing?”

“Waiting,” Laura declared. She folded her arms.

Remus regarded her for a long moment, and then he heaved a deep sigh that made his narrow shoulders rise and fall.

“You should really tell her,” he said.

And then he walked away.  

///

Evening fell, the shadows running long in the corridor, and Laura let her eyes slip shut again. She had been napping on-and-off for the past several hours, ignoring the chill of the stone against her back.

Her anger, and subsequent panic, had both dulled into a nagging ache in the back of her skull. They had not gone, not by a longshot, but they had become bearable. She no longer felt a desire to punch something, for instance, and the insane desire to injure herself so that Madam Pomfrey would be _forced_ to admit her had abated.

She was just drifting back into an uneasy sleep when the clicking of heels snapped her eyes open.

She had hoped for Dumbledore, or perhaps McGonagall—anyone that had the authority to grant her access to Carmilla—and thus she felt a sinking stone of disappointment in her stomach when she recognized the approaching figure as Perry.

“Laura,” she greeted, twisting her fingers anxiously as she came to a halt. Laura didn’t meet her eyes. “I, uh, thought I might find you here. Can I—?” she gestured at the floor beside Laura.

Laura shrugged.

Perry sat, crossing her legs, and then she cleared her throat and stammered, “Is there, um, anything you would like to discuss?”

 _Like why you’re sitting outside the Hospital Wing?_ Laura filled in the rest of the question. She scowled.

“No.”

“Well…” Perry teetered. She spun a bracelet around her wrist. Laura had never seen it before; it was probably a new gift from LaFontaine. “You seem to be having a… well, a strong _reaction_ to today’s match, and I thought—well, actually, _LaFontaine_ thought—”

“What?” Laura snapped. “What did _LaF_ think?”

Perry shrank, but recovered quickly. She straightened her shoulders and leveled Laura with a hard look, “You know, you could have told us,” she declared hotly. “We _are_ your friends. You could have mentioned that you _liked_ her.”

“I don’t,” Laura argued, her cheeks heating.

“Laura.” Her name was almost condescending off of Perry’s lips, pitying in its disbelief.

She huffed out a sigh and stared down at her own lap, “We’re just friends.”

It was true. They were just friends.

That was probably all they’d ever be.

“Hm,” Perry hummed. “Well. Regardless—you clearly care about her.”

All Laura could manage was another shrug.

“Laura?” she waited until Laura had lifted her eyes before she followed up with her question: “Exactly how long have you two been… friends?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “Like… a year… ish.”

Perry drew in a breath, “A _year?”_ Her voice rose with the words, making them an accusation. As Laura’s shoulders hunched, though, she cleared her throat and dropped the volume, “Okay. A year. That’s—okay. So you’re friends with Karnstein. Carmilla. That—I mean, she’s… nice? To you?”

Laura’s whole face was burning. Her ears rang, the tips tingling as painfully as if she had stayed out too long in the cold.

“She’s my _friend_ , Perry.”

“Yes. Yes, you said… that. Right.”

Laura tugged at the sleeves of the Quidditch robes she was still wearing. There was mud spattered on the cuffs, dry and cracking. “I was going to tell you guys.”

 _“When?”_ Perry asked, and had the decency to look abashed, as though she had not meant to let the question escape.

“Well… I sort of asked her to start helping me out in Potions,” Laura admitted weakly. She crossed her arms and sighed, “This really wasn’t how I wanted you to find out.”

“To find out that you were _friends_ with Karnstein,” Perry said.

Laura shot her a look.

_“Yes.”_

“Just clarifying,” said Perry, raising a hand in defense, “I did want to warn you, though, that, well—LaFontaine is less sure how they feel about this than I am? I mean I’m all for giving… _Carmilla_ a chance. If you like her—that is, if you’re _friends_ with her, now—” she huffed out a breath. “Well, then I want to get to know her.”

Laura’s eyes flashed at the implication. “And LaFontaine doesn’t?”

“Well…”

“They just nearly _killed_ her! They owe her an _apology_.”

Perry swallowed, holding her hands out in front of her in an attempt to be placating, “LaFontaine needs a little more time to understand—”

“To understand that they can’t just shoot Bludgers at people _who don’t even have the Quaffle_ just because they don’t like them? I had _just_ told them not to go after her!”

Perry cringed. “Okay, yes, that’s very fair. I just think with a little time—”

Laura didn’t get to hear what Perry thought ‘a little time’ would do for their situation. The doors to the Hospital Wing opened without warning.

Carmilla took two steps into the corridor and froze, reeling a pace backwards and almost hitting the door as it swung shut behind her.

“Laura?”

Her eyes darted from Laura to Perry and back again, her cheeks oddly, unfamiliarly pink.

Laura scrambled to her feet. “Carm! Are you okay? They wouldn’t let me see you.”

“You… have you been out here this whole time?” Carmilla stammered. She glanced at Perry again, who had just stood and dusted herself off behind Laura.

“Yes,” said Laura impatiently, “But are you _okay?”_

Carmilla blinked at her, a frown settling across her brow, “I—yeah. I’m fine.”

Perry cleared her throat. “Well then,” she said carefully, “I’ll be going. Laura, I’ll see you back at the Tower. Carmilla, I’m glad to see that you are… doing better.”

She breezed past, shooting Laura a knowing look as she went. Laura bit her lip and willed herself not to flush.  

“That was… friendly,” Carmilla managed, after an extended, awkward silence. “So. She knows, then? About… about us?”

Laura’s heart leapt at the word, even if Carmilla didn’t mean it the way Laura wished she did.

“Yes. They, uh, they both know.” She cleared her throat, “ _Everyone_ probably knows.”

Now she _did_ flush. Perry would not be the only one to make guesses about Laura’s feelings, and she knew it. She was horribly, embarrassingly obvious.

Even Carmilla probably knew.

She tried not to think about that.

“This school is quite the rumor mill,” Carmilla commented. Her tone was calm, but her posture was shifty. Nervous. “You’re… okay with this?”

“Of course,” Laura insisted, “I don’t care what people think.”

“And what about your friends?”

Laura couldn’t help the wince that followed, “Well. Perry’s cool.”

“And the other one isn’t.” It was a statement—not a question.

She nodded, chewing her lip, “I’m really sorry.”

“For what?”

With an angry creak, the Hospital Wing doors opened once more. Madam Pomfrey paused in the opening, her lips pursing into a dangerously thin, white line that would have rivaled even Professor McGonagall’s strictest glare. “Does this look like a social lounge to the two of you?” she barked, making shooing gestures with her hands.

Glancing at Carmilla, Laura felt a bite of fear jump in her throat. She half expected the other girl to make some comment about returning to their respective dormitories—saying she needed to rest, or that Laura needed to be with her team.

Something, anything that could pull them apart before she was ready.

Before she was satisfied that the Carmilla in front of her was solid, and real, and _safe_.

Instead, Carmilla caught Laura’s wrist and gave it a careful tug. Laura fell in line at the other girl’s side as easily as chasing the lazy arc of a Quaffle. And, as they made their way down the corridor, cutting through one of the hidden tapestry passageways and up several flights of stairs, Carmilla’s grip slid lower, tracing across Laura’s palm until their fingers were twined together.   

She squeezed.

They came up into the open air of the Owlery Tower, padding across the snow-washed stone to the parapet. They rested their linked hands together on the low wall, neither loosening their hold on the other.

Laura shivered as she worked to contain her breathing.

This didn’t mean anything. She couldn’t get her hopes up just because they were holding hands—friends held hands all the time, didn’t they? This wasn’t even the first time she and Carmilla had done this… it was just the longest they had maintained the contact.

Laura stared out at the grounds, unsure if she could control herself if they met each other’s eyes.

“What are you thinking, right now?” Carmilla asked. She ran her thumb over Laura’s.

That was not a question Laura could answer honestly.

She shook her head.

“Well, what were you going to say?” Carmilla tried, instead, “Before Pomfrey interrupted us?”

“Oh.” Laura sighed, “I was trying to apologize. What happened during the match—” her voice buckled, a flicker of anger shivering back to life in her chest.

She saw Carmilla’s shattered broom again, her still body lying prone on the icy field.

“It was just Quidditch,” Carmilla insisted, tugging her carefully back to the present, “I’d be more upset if you went _easy_ on me.”

“I told LaFontaine to leave you alone,” Laura muttered. “And it wasn’t entirely strategic—but it _mostly_ was! And they didn’t listen to me because they didn’t know we were friends, because I still hadn’t told them, and they were being petty. Which is why you almost died!”

 _Well, not really_ , she corrected internally.

Laura’s research suggested that vampires required specific means to _actually_ die. A wooden stake to the heart, beheading—even a fire could do it, were it not extinguished quickly enough. There had been a great number of illustrations in the books Laura had read through. Her heart had ached with fear at each new story of persecution, torture, and execution, because, with each picture, she envisioned Carmilla in the vampire’s place.

She dared to glance at the other girl, now, her heart still thudding too quickly for her own good. She found Carmilla’s head bowed and her eyes closed.

“You shouldn’t worry about me,” she mumbled.

“But I _do_ ,” Laura insisted. She was thinking of more than just Quidditch—not that she could explain that to Carmilla. She couldn’t bring herself to confirm what she knew in her heart.

What if Carmilla were upset that she knew?

“I’m still sorry,” she added, her voice low with seriousness, “And your broom…”

“It was a school broom.” She regarded Laura carefully, her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly, and took a long breath, “Laura? Did you really sit outside the Hospital Wing that whole time?”

They were still holding hands, and the warmth of the connection stretched up her arm and through her chest, like a flickering flame. Like a physical manifestation of courage.

“I might have.”

Carmilla hesitated, her hair falling over her eyes.

“Why?”

The guarded edge of the single word made Laura’s throat tighten.

“Because you were hurt. And they wouldn’t let me see you.”

Laura traced her eyes carefully over Carmilla for the first time since they’d left the Hospital Wing corridor. The bump on the side of her head had healed, and the skin was as smooth and unblemished as ever. The pink of her cheeks had not been an illusion of the light, either—it was still visible out here in the open, wintery air. 

At once, Laura understood. To heal, Carmilla needed fresh blood. _That_ was why Laura had not been permitted into the Hospital Wing. And, of course, all of the staff were aware of her _situation_. She felt a fresh surge of respect—and warmth—towards Madam Pomfrey. Her irritability with Laura had merely been tied into her desire to protect Carmilla’s secret.

Laura caught the movement, as Carmilla reached up to the touch her Quaffle pendant. She had not realized the other girl was wearing it, but there it was, twisting tentatively between Carmilla’s thumb and forefinger.

“You know you didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did,” Laura scoffed, her hand instinctively squeezing Carmilla’s. Both of their gazes dropped down to their intertwined fingers. “I care about you.”

Carmilla shifted, drawing in a breath that Laura knew was unnecessary. The air between them seemed heavy, where a moment ago there had been a chill.

Resolve shivered in Carmilla’s eyes, flickering in and out. A candle in a storm.

“Laura?”

Her breath caught in her throat, her shoulders tensing, “Yeah?”

“There’s something—” Carmilla bit her lip, a terrible vulnerability carving across her features, deeper than ever before. The blush in her cheeks was dark, startling, and there was a shudder in her eyelashes as she blinked.

Laura saw the moment the candle blew out.

Carmilla tugged her fingers free of Laura’s as she whispered, “Never mind.”

The loss of contact panged in her chest like a distant drum, her fingers chasing but falling short.

“Carm?” Laura asked. She reached up and touched Carmilla’s chin. She barely had to push for cooperation—Carmilla turned easily, facing her with shimmering eyes.

 _Gryffindors are brave_ , Laura told herself. She blew out a breath.

And pushed up onto her toes.

Pressed her lips to Carmilla’s.

Everything was soft, and wonderful, and warmth burst in her fingertips like fireworks but she didn’t dare move her hands from where they were frozen at her sides, her eyes shut and her heart pounding in her throat.

Carmilla’s lips moved under hers. One heartbeat. Two heartbeats.

And then everything went horribly still.

Laura pulled back, her arms wrapping about herself instinctively, hugging tight. There was a black hole expanding out of her chest, aching and cold at the edges, because Carmilla’s eyes were still closed, her lips pressed tight together and her jaw stiff.

_Please, no._

“Laura… I can’t.”

_No, no, no._

“I’m sorry,” Laura sputtered, “I shouldn’t have—I didn’t ask, and I don’t know what I was thinking—”

Carmilla curled away like an ember leaping from the fire, the life in her cheeks snuffed out as quickly as it had arrived. She was ghostly pale, now, radiating discomfort the way an ice sculpture expelled cold.

“—I won’t do it again, I promise. I can’t—I don’t want you to think that I—I mean, we’re friends, and y-you don’t even have to say anything, or _do_ anything. Or, or if you don’t want—I mean, I can just go, if I made this weird—”

“Please, stop,” Carmilla whispered. Her voice was taut, a string on the verge of snapping.

Laura fell silent, tears pricking in her eyes.

The physical distance between them was barely anything. Laura could have easily reached out and touched the loose curls of her hair, and the memory of thinking that very same thing their first real night on the pitch haunted at the edges of her memory.

She couldn’t reach out, though—not any more than she could have done that night.

The silence spoke of a chasm between them, greater than any touch could breach.

“Are you mad?” she whispered.

Carmilla’s head lifted from where it had fallen. “No,” she said, the shake of her head almost imperceptible. All Laura heard was ‘yes,’ wrapped in a lie that she had to bite through her teeth.

She nodded dumbly, her head bobbing like a buoy at the mercy of the sea.

“I’m sorry,” Carmilla added half-heartedly. Her jaw was tense.

Everything _hurt._

“Can we still be friends?” she pleaded helplessly into the growing silence. Her voice had crumbled. It was a croak, unfamiliar even to her own ears. Before Carmilla could answer, she was forcing out the rest, desperation bubbling unhindered to the surface, “We can pretend this never happened! Please, Carm. _Please.”_

Carmilla’s hand twitched, her shoulder tugging back as though she had halfway considered reaching out, but thought better. _Of course_. That would be everything, now. Second-thoughts on every word, every movement.

But.

“Okay,” said Carmilla. Her eyes were locked on her feet, but her nod was solid, this time. Tangible in two slow rises and falls, “This... never happened.”

The relief was a warm blanket, stepping in from the cold. A mug of hot chocolate in shivering fingers.

Laura could only nod. She was out of words, and there was a sob itching at her that she did not dare let escape.

Without another word, without so much as a parting glance, Carmilla stepped away from the parapet, slipped down the stairs, and was gone.

The hole in her chest ever-expanding, Laura let her go.

///

Carmilla paused in the corridor outside the Ravenclaw common room, pressing her back into the chilly stone wall and reaching a trembling hand up to brush at her lips.

 _If she knew_ , she thought brokenly, _If she ever knew the truth of you…_

The sob rose hard and fast in her throat, and she did not fight back. Head in her hands, she slid down to the floor and gasped raggedly into her clutched hands, the tears falling without restraint.

_She deserves so much more than you._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the month-long waits between updates are slow, but I promise I will someday be on a quicker schedule. Life has just been rather chaotic recently. 
> 
> If you want to pop by with questions (or motivational speeches) feel free: [jg-firefly](https://jg-firefly.tumblr.com/)


	13. Sky's Still Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura has regrets, but life keeps moving forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the Andrew Belle song of the same name.

_Spring of 1975 (Fifth Year)_

“That’s the best one, yet,” Carmilla commented, peering into the cauldron at the edge of their workbench. Laura’s potion was a murky white, more of a silver than the creamy brew in the other girl’s cauldron, but Carmilla was right. It was the closest she had come to the correct finished product.

“Thanks,” said Laura. There was no enthusiasm in the word.

This was the third time Carmilla had sat with her in the dungeon classroom. That did not mean that things had been normal.

She was not even sure what normal _was_ , these days, unless normal was LaFontaine glaring at the two of them, or Perry being overly-cheerful, or Carmilla maintaining a controlled distance between them.

Where it would have once been _normal_ for them to sit together with their shoulders brushing, or their hands touching, Carmilla kept her stool well apart from Laura’s. She held her hand out to ask for ingredients or tools, rather than plucking them away herself… and she was stiffer, her smiles as forced as Laura’s own.

Laura couldn’t bring herself to ask Carmilla if she wanted to be free of her. She suspected that this—the two of them working together—was an obligation rather than a friendly gesture.

What if she gave Carmilla that last out, and she took it?

After all, they no longer met alone for late nights on the Quidditch pitch or the Astronomy Tower or the Owlery; there was already so little left to cling to. Laura knew she was being desperate, but there was an aching chasm in her chest and she just didn’t _care_.

She should never have kissed her.

There had been those frozen seconds, that blissful pause when Carmilla’s lips had responded to the pressure, had shifted under her touch and kissed _back_. The memory felt like a teasing lie, like she had made it up in a dream. Laura had to keep reminding herself that the reality she lived in was the one in which Carmilla froze in horror, mumbling that they could still be friends.

“Very nice,” Professor Slughorn commented, when he passed their table, and Laura couldn’t bring herself to be offended by the surprise in his voice as he appraised the cauldron.

He moved on to LaFontaine and Perry.

“How is that extra credit project coming, then?” he asked cheerfully.

Having mastered the Draught of Peace weeks ago, Slughorn had allowed the both of them to pick a project of their own to fill the time before exams. 

“We’ve settled on Amortentia,” Perry declared brightly. Her attempt to garner Slughorn’s attention succeeded for a fleeting moment before his gaze flicked back to his favorite student.

“Ah, yes, a challenging brew, but I’m sure you’re up for it, eh? Is this your first go?”

LaF nodded, scowling. “It’s trickier than I was expecting.”

From across the table, Laura could smell the distinct, acrid scent of burnt hair. There was something else, too, like spoiled milk. Carmilla, who had lifted her head to listen to the conversation, wrinkled her nose.

Laura looked away quickly, her gut doing the exact opposite of the pleasant swoosh she’d come to associate with Carmilla. This was more like the unexpected jolt of car brakes slamming.

“No bother,” Slughorn assured them with a wink. “A few more tries and you’ll have it!” He glanced back to Carmilla as he added, “And of course you’ll both be attending my little Easter soiree?”

LaF nodded at once, their hand drifting to land on top of Perry’s. “And I can still bring a guest, right, Professor?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” he said, his eyes twinkling. He nodded to Perry, first, and then Laura as well—with only a little hesitation.

Laura’s fictional car crashed into a tree.

As if Carmilla would ever invite her.

A small, foolish part of her, though? The part that still jumped when Carmilla entered a room, the part that still spent far too long watching her across the Great Hall during dinner?

It hoped.

“We’re going to study in the library,” Perry announced, as class drew to a close and they cleared their cauldrons. “You are welcome to join us, of course.”

The offer was for Carmilla, Perry’s expression neutral but her eyes brimming with concern. Laura focused on her bag, pretending to struggle with one of the straps so that she did not have to look at any of them.

“Oh. Um. I have plans, actually,” Carmilla mumbled.

Laura said nothing, keeping her head down as they left the dungeons and Carmilla drifted off on her own path. She was left to trail LaF and Perry to the library, her stomach roiling.

“So, what is this Easter party?” Perry asked, once they had settled around their usual table. Her smile was too bright, too eager, and the way she opened her book (with a loud slam) suggested she was not as _thrilled_ about the situation as she’d have them believe.

_At least she’s going,_ Laura thought irritably.

“It’ll probably be just like the New Year’s party I took you to. Lots of food, people trying too hard to network, and Slughorn bragging about all the famous students he's taught.”

“Hm. Yes, the food was quite good last time,” Perry acknowledged. “And it will be so nice to have you along, this time, Laura!” she added.

“Who said I was going?” she scowled over the top of her History of Magic notes.

Perry shot LaFontaine a nervous look, but LaFontaine’s shoulders had gone stiff, and they were studiously ignoring the both of them.

“I just mean you’ll be going with Carmilla,” Perry offered. She twitched ever so slightly, “That was what was… implied.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t think she’ll be inviting me,” Laura muttered, “But please, go ahead and bring me some leftovers.”

She heard the anger, the bitterness, in her own voice. She had not even tried to bury her frustration. What was the point?

_It was the truth._

Perry primly set down her quill. “Laura… did something happen between you two?”

Laura’s face flushed against her will.

“Wait, did she hurt you?” LaFontaine demanded, and their sudden interruption made both Laura and Perry jump. LaF was clutching their quill so tightly that it was a wonder it had not snapped. Their eyes were narrowed.

“No,” Laura muttered. She tucked her hair back behind her ears, “She just—she doesn’t like me.”

She heard, rather than saw, as Perry gave a quiet little cough. Her eyes were too busy digging a hole in the table.

“And by _like_ you, you mean—”

“Yes, Perry,” Laura ground out, sighing so loudly that several heads turned at nearby tables, “You know _exactly_ what I mean.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” LaFontaine scoffed.

Laura’s face burned hotter, “Maybe I don’t want your input,” she snapped, her eyes finally lifting to shoot daggers at them, “You’ve already made your opinions on Carmilla clear.”

They had. LaFontaine had refused to apologize to Laura over the Bludger they’d shot at Carmilla, and had been giving her an icy shoulder whenever the other girl was so much as mentioned. It had been setting Laura’s teeth on edge for the past two weeks.

LaFontaine looked affronted. “Fine, I don’t like her—but this is why! She’s messing with your emotions. She’s trouble.”

“She’s not _messing_ with my emotions,” Laura argued. Something cracked hollowly in her chest, “She’s been… very clear.”

“Did she tell you that she _doesn’t_ like you?” Perry asked. Her tone was gentler than LaF’s, almost coddling, and it somehow managed to press Laura closer to the precipice of her self-control.

“No! I tried to—it doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want me. End of story.”

“But, Laura, the way she _looks_ at you—”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Laura exploded. This time the whole library seemed to go still, all eyes locking on their table.

Laura’s face felt like it was going to be permanently red. She stood up in a flurry of lost study papers and tumbling textbooks, intent on getting as far away as possible, as _quickly_ as possible. If anyone at the school was unaware of her feelings, they were living under one of the Walking Stones in Hagrid’s garden, and she did not feel like providing any more fodder for their curiosity.

Madam Pince was already swooping across the room like a hungry vulture, so she gathered the remainder of her things with a wave of her wand—the imperfect spell managing to rip the spine of a book and spill several blotches of red ink onto the floor—and fled out the doors before she could have her neck wrung by the furious librarian.

She would normally have felt guilty, abandoning her friends to face the impending wrath, but right now she could not find it in her heart to care—not about them, not about anything.

Laura did not even notice where her footfalls were taking her until she found herself traipsing across the Entrance Hall in a beeline for the doors.

For the first time in over a year, she was relieved to find the pitch abandoned when she stepped out onto the field.

She did not go to the goal posts, or even collect one of the Quaffles. Instead, she set herself on a breakneck race around the perimeter, pressing herself low to her Cleansweep as she took the corners hard. She pretended the moisture in her eyes, leaking down her cheeks, had come from the wind.

Carmilla did not like her.

This wasn’t a surprise, or it shouldn’t have been. Had she not been telling herself, for months, that this was a dangerous crush? That she should keep her expectations low?

The boggart had warned her that Carmilla could never be interested.

And what was Laura, after all?

She was barely a witch. She needed extra help in nearly every subject. All of her charms were clumsy, half of them more dangerous than they were helpful. She was useless in Transfiguration, where she was the last remaining student unable to vanish their kitten. She was only going to pass Potions because she had three pairs of eyes looking over her shoulder to make sure she didn’t blow anything up. There were only a handful of defense spells she knew, and she relied on them too heavily, making her ‘predictable,’ according to every competent teacher they’d had thus far in the subject.

She was a terrible captain. Gryffindor had only won their last match because of Carmilla’s injury, which was hardly the honorable way to go about anything, and hardly a _strategy_ for the future. She was unfocused, and uninspiring. The team didn’t want to follow her—they fought amongst themselves, argued over the calls, outright yelled at her when they disagreed with her methods.

She was failing as a friend. Perry was walking on eggshells around her, and Laura couldn’t seem to contain her temper. LaFontaine was barely speaking to her, and everything they said had Laura flaring up only to spend hours afterwards questioning every word that had left her mouth. And Carmilla—

Laura had kissed her.

Without her permission.

Everything— _everything_ —was falling apart.

She nearly crashed into the Hufflepuff stands when someone’s shout swerved her out of her arc. She could barely see for the tears flooding her vision. 

“Laura!”

Of all the people Laura would have expected, LaFontaine was low on the list. They were also not alone. They had seemingly brought the whole of the Gryffindor team with them.

“Wh-what is this?” Laura asked, not quite settling onto the field. She hovered just over the ground, her toes hanging down to brush at the grass.

“Practice,” said Potter with a flippant toss of his hair, “LaF said you needed us.”

Laura let her eyes shift to her friend, who was biting the inside of their lip and hunching their shoulders.

“They did?”

The ten students, starters and back-ups alike, all nodded as one.

Laura scrubbed quickly at the dried moisture on her cheeks, and clapped her hands. “Okay. Yes. Cool. Let’s… run some drills.”

As they rose up into the pitch, Laura met her friend’s eyes, and gave the faintest of nods. LaFontaine, their lip quirking in a hesitant smile, nodded back.

///

“I just _know_ they’re up to something no good,” Perry muttered. She was watching, with narrowed eyes, as Potter and his friends dug through a massive stack of books in a dusty corner of the library.

Remus looked more at ease than Laura had seen him in weeks, though there was a long, thin scar across his face that had not been there a week before. She was sure Perry had noted this, as well.

“Maybe they’re just studying,” LaFontaine suggested hopefully. They looked panicked at the mere suggestion of Perry wanting them to help interfere; the last time Perry had forced them into Prefect duties, they had wound up with detention themselves.

They didn’t like to talk about it.

Perry sniffed. “Those four don’t _study_. And it’s not as if they have O.W.L.s… No, they’re plotting something.”

“You could always ask them,” Laura offered. At Perry’s raised eyebrow, she elaborated, “Carmilla once told me that Potter was so arrogant he’d confess right to McGonagall’s face just to see if she’d believe him.”

“How well does _Carmilla_ know Potter?”

They were trying. They really were. Laura still shot them a withering look.

“I think she got it from Remus.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Perry put in with a nod, “I always forget those two are friends. Has she ever told you how they know each other?”

Laura pictured an abandoned classroom. Carmilla and Remus leaping apart, red-faced.

“No,” she said, forcing her shoulders into as carefree of a shrug as she could manage.

Across the library, Peter Pettigrew gave a sputtering choke, hacking up what looked like the remains of a salad. Perry glared at the unsavory display, her eagle-eyes sweeping about in search of Madam Pince, but the librarian was, for once, not in earshot.

The three other boys burst into muffled fits of laughter. Sirius nearly fell off his chair.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Perry muttered. She tossed down her quill and got to her feet. As she breezed through the sea of students, their noses all buried in books or pressed to essays, Laura caught a glimpse of a girl standing uncertainly in the open doorway.

Catching her eye, Carmilla gave a small nod of greeting and then drifted through the tables, her hips swaying as she dodged around the hodge-podge of uneven seating. She dropped into the free chair without asking, earning a jump and a glare from LaFontaine. Neither of them spoke to the other.

When Perry returned it was with a dramatic huff. Her hair flounced as she dropped unceremoniously into her chair.

“Well, that was useless,” she declared.

“Why? What did they say?” demanded LaFontaine.

“They said they were getting ‘hands-on experience’ with animagi transformations. Absurd. I told them they weren’t to be eating in the library, and they _laughed_ at me.” She adjusted her sleeves with a little _harrumph_. “Oh. Hello Carmilla.”

Carmilla made a little grunt of acknowledgment, flicking through a book.

“Did you give them detention?” Laura asked Perry. She glanced back across the room, watching as the boys merrily huddled over one particularly thick spellbook. They didn’t look any worse-for-wear from Perry’s scolding. Potter was grinning, his hair as tousled as ever.

“No, because they’d already cleaned up the mess and for all-intents-and-purposes they really are just _studying_. They’ve got more books on that table than I think I’ve ever taken out.”

The admittance sounded like it hurt her.

“What _are_ they studying, anyway?”

Perry glowered at the papers stacked in front of her. “Animagi,” she admitted.

///

Perry, in the last week of February, began devising color-coded study schedules. These were terrifying, but also marvelously useful, and both Laura and LaFontaine were careful not to complain when she presented them with their personalized copies.

They had been cleverly bewitched (“Extra practice!” Perry proclaimed) such that they highlighted the more important bits in flashing ink. Laura’s, for instance, had a large section set aside for Potions, with arrows directed at it and changing text. It alternated between berating her lack of knowledge on the properties of unicorn tail, and proclaiming that she needed at least an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ if she expected to go into any sort of profitable field.

LaFontaine, while Perry was distracted by a group of First Years attempting to smuggle contraband Firewhisky up to their dormitory, scoffed and showed theirs to Laura. The block for Charms reminded them ‘you can’t brew up a cleaning spell!’

The Exam schedules were posted the first week in March. McGonagall frightened them all with a class-long lecture on the many ways to be caught cheating, while Slughorn prattled on about the variety of potions they might be asked to brew, and reminded them about the necessity for proper maintenance of their cauldrons and equipment. (“Don’t want to find a hole in the bottom of your pewter during an exam, oh-ho no!”). Flitwick provided an exceptionally long list of charms they might be asked to perform in their practical section. Of all their teachers, only Binns seemed unfazed by the impending O.W.L.s. He continued to drone on about goblin wars as though it were any other time of year.

They no longer had time to practice the Patronus Charm—or anything else that would not be on the exams. Laura barely had time to set aside for Quidditch practice, which now felt more like a hassle than an escape.

“Come on, hurry up,” Perry complained, one day in mid-March, as they were packing up their books after Transfiguration, “We’re going over the basic household spells tonight, and they are _critical_. These tests are weighted, you realize, and if you can’t even handle the basic questions, you’ll never make it through. That’s why we’re starting on these _first_.”

Laura was almost startled when Carmilla fell into step beside her as they left the classroom. She blinked at her, clutching her bag just a little tighter at her side.

“Are you… going to study with us?” she asked.

She regretted the question at once, the moment it echoed back to her own ears. Carmilla rarely joined them, and when she did it was hardly ever because she planned to actually _study_. She usually propped up her feet on a nearby table and buried her nose in a book, seeming so casual, so disaffected, that it hurt to focus on her for too long.

Laura almost preferred when she stayed away—both because it was less of an ache on her heart and because it made things calmer between her and LaFontaine.

(It still did not stop Laura from missing her when she was not around.)

Carmilla merely shrugged. She burrowed in the front pocket of her bag, extracting what looked suspiciously like Laura’s own study schedule. On closer inspection, it had ‘Carmilla Karnstein’ printed in Perry’s perfectly neat script across the top.

Carmilla smiled sardonically, “Your friend is _deeply_ persistent.”

Laura glanced ahead, to where Perry and LaFontaine were leading the way, lost in their own conversation. LaFontaine was waving their hands with whatever speech they were giving, and Perry was looking on with sparkling eyes and a small, enraptured smile.

“She made you a whole schedule?” Laura asked, incredulous even though the evidence was staring straight at her.

Carmilla nodded. “I was a little alarmed, actually, that she knew all of my classes. But then I figured she probably just asked you.”

“Oh.” Perry had never directly asked, but Laura supposed she had talked about Carmilla enough for the other girl to get the gist.

That was embarrassing.

They reached the library, and Carmilla claimed a chair next to her at their table as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Laura didn’t miss the way she shifted herself back, though, the moment their elbows accidentally rubbed while unloading their bags. Carmilla leaned decidedly away, pushing her chair back and crossing her legs so that an ankle rested on the opposite knee.

For once, she didn’t open a random philosophy book or collection of poetry. Instead, she unraveled a scroll of her own neatly written notes and began to pore over them.

Laura, consulting her own study guide, scowled at the list of basic charms that Perry had decided she most needed to work on. It seemed to contain _all_ of the charms she had ever learned. A bitter taste in the back of her throat, Laura stood and made her way into the stacks, looking for the _Standard Book of Spells_ collection for years one through four.

When she returned to the table, Perry and Carmilla were engaged in hushed conversation. They fell silent the moment she appeared, with Perry smoothing down her robes and crisply flipping to the next page in her book. Carmilla maintained a perplexed furrow in her brow, while LaFontaine continued to glare determinedly at the book open in front of them.

Laura caught Carmilla staring, as she settled into her seat and opened the first of her books. The other girl looked away quickly.

_Great_ , she thought. They had been talking about _her_.

And, if Carmilla’s uncertain expression was any indication, it had not been positive.

With this thought in mind, it was almost impossible to focus her energy on studying. Perry wanted her to list out all the charm definitions and uses, with wandwork specifications and inventors, but she found her thoughts drifting after every few words that she managed to scrawl out, wandering back to play through the horrible timeline that had brought her to this moment.

Carmilla being here, sitting at her side and studying at the same table as her friends, was supposed to be a good thing. Laura had thought it would be happy—that her biggest concern would be getting LaFontaine and Perry on board with the whole Carmilla-is-not-actually-evil line of understanding.

Certainly, Perry had jumped straight into the deep end on that one. She was practically to the brownie baking level, if the personalized schedule was any indication. And LaF was less bitter comments and more extended silences these days.

Really, it was Carmilla herself that was the real problem.

Or Laura.

She wanted back the casual nights on the pitch, or the stolen evenings hiding together at the top of one of the many towers. When it had just been them, Laura had felt so certain. She had looked at Carmilla and believed that maybe this beautiful girl could want her back.

All of those things—all of the conversations and the hand touches and the quiet stares—they had been simple in a way Laura had not appreciated.

And now everything was complicated, and weighted with the memory of her _worst decision ever_.

Laura made it through the list, though it took her far longer than necessary and certainly caused her greater pain than she would have liked. Perry would have called her dramatic, but her head was pounding in a very real way when she finally set down her quill.

The action startled the others, who were, by now, engrossed in their own studies. Any conversation between LaFontaine and Perry had lulled across the hours, and it wasn’t as if Carmilla had parted her lips to so much as cough since Laura had rejoined the table.

Around them, the library was packed to the brim with fifth and seventh years, their expressions a mixture of grim determination and outright panic. A tall blonde girl in the corner was sniffling to herself, and a boy Laura recognized from a few of her classes was squinting at a dark red Remembrall, his jaw clenched.

Carmilla had stiffened at Laura’s sudden movement, eyeing her warily over the top of her book—for she was reading now, and it looked to be for pleasure rather than for studies, though Perry had said nothing to scold this behavior (either because she did not feel comfortable or because she respected anyone that would willingly read ‘Notable Wizarding Influences on Early Muggle Philosophy’ in their spare time).

She packed quickly.

“I think I’m going to go work on some of the practical stuff,” she said. She wasn’t sure yet if it was a lie, knowing only that she wanted to get out of the library and away from the heavy air that always settled over her whenever Carmilla was nearby. She felt watched, like her every move was a dangerous indicator of her unreciprocated feelings. Like they were never going to get back to just being friends because she had ruined that, too.

She ruined everything she touched.

Carmilla frowned, “Do you want help?”

_It’s just pity, it’s just pity…_

“No,” she said, and, when she hurried away, no one followed her.

///

It was breakfast, two days later, when Carmilla dropped smoothly into the empty spot beside her at the Gryffindor table. Laura froze, oatmeal slipping off her spoon and back into the bowl.

“What are you doing?”

“Joining you,” Carmilla answered briskly. She even smiled, greeting Perry as she dumped brown sugar onto her oatmeal.

“Why?” Laura asked, before she could stop herself.

Perry made a little sound in the back of her throat, clattering her silverware loudly and pretending to need something in her bag. Laura just stared at Carmilla blankly, waiting for an answer.

Carmilla frowned, that same uncertainty from the other day returning. It was a shadow in the cool brown depths of her eyes. She bit her lip.

“I mean, I can go. I just thought—”

“No,” said Laura, barely stopping her reaching hand before it grabbed Carmilla by the sleeve. She dropped it limply into her lap, swallowing. “It’s fine. Stay.”

Carmilla, eyes searching, let herself rotate carefully so she was facing the table, feet flat on the floor.

“You’ve been really… quiet, recently,” she mumbled.

Laura swallowed her bite of egg unceremoniously, nearly choking as her throat tightened.

She managed a shrug, not daring to risk a glance at Carmilla.

Perry, in what was a hideously poor attempt to be subtle, swung her feet over the bench and dashed away, leaving her plate still half-full. Without her unwelcome ears listening, Carmilla took an audible, rattling breath.

“Laura.”

Forcing her face into a neutral expression, Laura turned to face her.

The first night of the schoolyear, Laura had stared at Carmilla on the edge of the Quidditch stands, hands gripping the railing and Carmilla’s gaze soft and sad as she watched the stars. She had whispered, then, about not understanding why Laura even talked to her. About fearing that Laura were upset with her, fearing that they were not friends.

Laura shivered with the memories. Carmilla’s gaze was just the same, now, brimming with emotion and vulnerability. Her pale lips were parted, and there were vertical lines drawn painfully, like cuts into Laura’s chest, between her brows.

She was gone, the moment she met that stare.

“Your friend said something, the other day.”

“LaF?” Laura asked at once. Her eyes were still searching, an unconscious scoping of Carmilla’s expression, as if looking for the source of her distress even if it were not going to be drawn so obviously there among her features.

Carmilla shook her head. “The other one. Perry.” She turned, as if to ensure that Perry were indeed gone, and then took another breath before plowing forward, “She asked me who I was taking to the stupid Slug Club party, and she implied, rather heavily, that you thought I wouldn’t want you to come with me. Which I thought was ridiculous, but she seemed very intent and you aren’t—you haven’t been talking much, and I know things are different, now, but—”

Another breath. This was the most Laura had ever heard her speak at once, and the closest she had ever come to Laura’s own levels of babbling. It had stunned Laura into silence.

“If I were going at all, of course I’d want you there. I mean the things are a nightmare, really, and the only benefit is the champagne because Slughorn doesn’t really give a shit about the legality of giving minors high-quality alcohol.”

She shifted her jaw nervously, her teeth clicking a little, and raised an eyebrow at Laura.

Whose words were still burrowed somewhere at the lower recesses of her lungs.

Carmilla dropped her head, her fingers playing with the end of her Ravenclaw tie, and Laura realized she had shifted so that she was almost fully sideways on the bench, her knee nearly brushing Laura’s hip.

“You’re sort of my best friend, Laura.”

This was a different sort of ache. It was not hollow, was not the scooped out innards of a Jack-o-Lantern that Laura had grown to associate herself with.

This burned like a candle trying to stay lit, like the gasp for oxygen just before things went dark.

“Hey,” she said, the word strangled and uncertain. It lifted Carmilla’s eyes back to her face, “You know you’re mine, too.”

Slowly, Carmilla’s expression shifted from fear into outright disbelief.

“But, the gingers…”

“Have each other,” Laura finished firmly. She wanted more than anything to grab Carmilla’s hand, give it a reassuring squeeze like she would have had no qualms doing a few months prior. Now wasn’t the time for those sorts of thoughts, though. “Carm, I’m always going to be here, okay? I know that things—I know what I did was wrong. And that things have been… awkward. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still here.” She dropped her head seriously, peering up at Carmilla and squaring her shoulders, “You’ll always be my best friend.”

_Even if that’s all we’ll ever be_.

Carmilla’s smile was warm, bright in its relief, but there was still a shadow in her eye when she turned away, like there was something else she had left unsaid.

Laura let her keep it, like all of the things she was keeping, herself.

“So,” she asked, mustering as much casual energy as she could manage, “Are we going to this Slug Club thing, then?”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow, “I mentioned how horrible it’s going to be, right?”

“Yes, but you also said something about champagne. And I know for a fact that Slughorn dishes out for the best food, too—not your standard Hogwarts-kitchen-fare.”

“There will probably be forced small talk. And dancing.”

Laura grinned, “Who said I didn’t like dancing?”

With a groan and a hearty roll of her eyes, Carmilla muttered, “Oh, alright.”

When Laura dared to bump her shoulder with a giddy laugh of excitement, she caught the way Carmilla’s lip twitched into a smile.

Alright, so this was all they would have.

Laura could live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been one crazy month, creampuffs. Sorry this was later than usual.
> 
> Drop me a line: [jg-firefly](https://jg-firefly.tumblr.com/)


	14. Career Advice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slughorn throws a party, Laura contemplates the future, and Remus knows what's up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks go to the ever-helpful V for making me a better writer, one edit at a time

_Spring of 1975 (Fifth Year)_

None of the fifth years went home for the Easter holidays. Instead, they settled into study hibernation. Perry had reached a point where she did not want to be around other people (“I love you guys, but you ruin my _focus!”_ _)_ , and after spending two begrudging days in the library with Laura and Carmilla, LaFontaine developed a need to study by themself as well.

And so, as the end of break loomed (and the Slug Club party with it), Laura arrived at the library alone to claim her usual seat at Carmilla’s side.

“Where’s the gingersnap?”

“LaF’s holed up in the dormitory. Something about needing less distractions.”

“Ah. So, we’re distracting, then? I can see that. You are very loud.”

“Hey!” Laura huffed. The single word drew glances, and she scowled, dropping her voice to a whisper, “That doesn’t prove anything.”

Carmilla smirked, turning her gaze back to the open book in her grasp ( _1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi)_ , “Mhm. Whatever you say.”

Laura hid her blush under the pretense of digging through her bag. Instead of removing her books, though, she pulled out a pile of pamphlets, spreading them on the table in front of her.

The night before, a notice had appeared on the board in the Gryffindor common room. Fifth year students were to receive career counseling from their Head of House in the week following the holidays. LaFontaine had claimed copies of the Potioneer and Healer pamphlets, while Perry had selected all of the Ministry related ones she could get her hands on, reading through them late into the night.

Laura had taken one of each, a growing pit of dread setting up shop in her stomach.

She was halfway through the first one: “So You Think You’d Like To Work With Muggles?” when she felt Carmilla stiffen beside her. When she looked up, the other girl was staring resolutely at her book. Her eyes were fixated, though, not darting across the pages with their usual, effortless speed.

“My appointment with McGonagall is on Tuesday,” said Laura. She grimaced at the leaflet, “None of these sound appealing.”

Carmilla said nothing, nodding curtly.

“What—what do you think you’d like to do?” Laura asked into the silence. A new, tense air had risen between them, for reasons she couldn’t begin to fathom. They had never talked about careers, but it hardly seemed the sort of topic that would be forbidden. It was not like she had dragged them into the murky waters of politics or religion.

She may as well have, from the way Carmilla’s expression darkened.

“I don’t know,” said Carmilla, but there was a bite to the words, rather than the calm, flippant air Laura was accustomed to hearing from her.

Laura tried to smile, a nervous laugh bubbling in her throat, “Well, you could do _anything_ , with your grades, but I’m sure you’ll wind up doing something with books, right? Hey, actually, you know what? You’d make a great professor.”

Carmilla stared, the hard edge of her scowl fading. She regarded Laura the way one might regard a ‘free samples’ sign at a ritzy restaurant; there was suspicion behind her intrigue. “Maybe,” she hedged.

“No, seriously. Here,” Laura insisted. She flipped through the pamphlets and shoved one under Carmilla’s nose.

“The Rewards of a Teaching Profession,” Carmilla read off drily.

“Take it,” Laura insisted, “Most of these are really silly, but they have a lot of information mixed in. Not that it’s helped _me_ , much.”

She frowned at the pile. All of the possibilities seemed either too dull or too far out of reach. Anything that had drawn even a modicum of interest listed grades far beyond her capabilities, or expected great things she could not envision herself doing. Things like Auror or Code-breaker were supposed to be in her wheel-house—hadn’t the Sorting Hat told her it saw a spark in her, courage and stubbornness just right to brew up a Gryffindor?

She had been proud of that, once.

Now, she just felt beaten-down. Stubbornness was not the sort of quality any employer would want—especially not when it was paired with a witch whose most confident spell-casting barely reached ‘Lumos.’

“Well,” Carmilla said, the word delicate and precarious, her teeth worrying her lower lip. She set the teaching pamphlet down gingerly. “What do you _want_ to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.” It was true. Beyond her impossible dreams of Quidditch stardom, Laura had only ever seen herself returning to her father’s cottage after she left Hogwarts. “And it’s not… I mean, I don’t have some great _talent_ or anything.”

Whatever shadow had crossed Carmilla’s face at the start of the conversation, it fell away starkly, now. She was left pale but clear-eyed, and she leaned forward with an electric sort of urgency.

“What? Of course you do.”

Laura scoffed. “No, I don’t.”

“Did someone tell you that?” asked Carmilla, an edge of anger working into her voice.

“No. I just—nothing comes to me naturally. I know how things are supposed to work, but… every spell I try doesn’t go right, and it takes me twice as long to learn just… just _anything_.” She lifted her head, locking her gaze earnestly with Carmilla’s. “You make it all look so easy. You have this grace when you move your wand, did you know that? And then Perry’s all formulaic and memorizing her textbooks, and LaF doesn’t even consult anything, especially in Potions, they just _know_ this stuff. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I’m not—maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up like you guys. Maybe it’s because I’m muggleborn. Maybe I should find a muggle career.”

Carmilla sat back heavily, her shoulders falling.

“It was me.”

Laura blinked. “What was you?”

“I’m the one that—I used to say that shit to you, Laura. That was _me_.” She took a shuddering breath, and suddenly she was twitching in her seat, fingers drumming unsteadily and leg bouncing, “I mean, for Merlin’s sake, Laura, have I even—did I ever apologize?”

“Carm, hey, take it easy,” Laura urged. Her hand landed close beside Carmilla’s, itching, but not touching, “You don’t need to _apologize_ for anything.”

“I was horrible to you,” said Carmilla, as though she had not heard Laura’s reassurance at all, “For absolutely no reason. You didn’t deserve any of that, and I made you think—”

“Hey,” Laura cut in sharply. “You didn’t deserve the things I did to you, either. Did you know I spread a rumor in third year that you liked Snape? I don’t think anyone believed it, but it drove Snape crazy and I think it sort of made Sirius idolize me—which was a whole other issue.”

It was Carmilla’s turn to stare.

“Oh, and there was that time I put you in the Hospital Wing, covered in boils, remember that? And, once, because I suggested it, LaF added a few drops of rat bile to your potion in class so it would spoil—I remember Slughorn being very disappointed.” She shook her head, “The point is, we’ve both done things we regret. And _said_ things we regret. But that was _years_ ago.”

Carmilla was still staring. “You told people that I liked Severus?”

Laura flushed, “Yes. And it wasn’t that _many_ people, but—yes. It was highly immature.”

“Well,” Carmilla managed, “That definitely explains why he got so weird that year.”

“Yeah, um, that’s probably why.” There was a heavy beat of silence, and then she offered a hesitant, grimace of a smile, “I’m sorry, too.”

Carmilla nodded, though she was frowning, again.

“Laura?” she asked. Laura hummed in response, eyebrow raising expectantly. “You haven’t—there weren’t any other rumors about me, were there? Not started by you, specifically, but just… things you might have heard?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure LaF started a rumor that you bewitched your broom to play Quidditch better. But I also don’t think anyone believes that.”

Carmilla did not laugh, though Laura had been trying to lighten the mood. Her eyes were dark. Serious. She looked almost frightened, and Laura softened at once.

“What sort of rumor, Carm?”

The flash of fear in Carmilla’s eyes answered the question for her.

 _A vampire rumor_.

The words danced across her mind at once, and she had to fight the urge to ram the heel of her hand into her forehead. _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

“Nothing,” Carmilla said sharply, “I was just—it was only a question.”

“Okay,” Laura agreed with a frantic bob of her head. “Okay, cool.”

 _So stupid_.

“But, um. Carm, you can—you can tell me anything, you know that, right?” She managed a smile that actually reached her eyes, and dared tap Carmilla’s thumb with her forefinger. The other girl looked down at the contact, and then swiftly back up into Laura’s eyes. “That’s what best friends are for.”

For one lingering, heavy beat, Laura thought maybe Carmilla would tell her. Her tongue darted out to run over her lower lip, and her eyes bulged a little before she shut them soundly and collected a rattling breath.

“Okay,” was all she said.

Heart hammering in her chest, unsaid words prickling on her tongue, Laura resigned herself to her reading.

///

“You’re sure this is okay?” Laura demanded. She spun once more in front of the mirror, scowling at her reflection as the dress swished just over her knees. It was blue, and flowy, and she felt just as uncertain about it now as she had when Perry had pushed her to buy it the summer before.

And what if Carmilla didn’t show up in muggle clothing? What if she had dress robes? Why had Laura not thought to ask about this in advance?

“You look perfect,” Perry said, peering at her own reflection as she dabbed on pale lipstick. “I’m sure Carmilla will love it.”

Laura flushed. “I’m not—that wasn’t what I asked!”

“Sure it was,” LaFontaine interrupted. They shifted around Laura and Perry, adjusting their jacket and running a quick hand through their coif of ginger hair. “Though I still don’t get what you’re worried about, L. She’s an idiot if she doesn’t want to date you—shiny dress or not.”

Laura said nothing.

She had still not told either of them about the kiss—the horrible, ill-advised, friendship-threatening kiss—and, as a result, was left trying her best to accept the positive affirmations they kept offering. LaFontaine, to their credit, was trying to be supportive of the whole ‘Carmilla thing,’ (or at least all the open glaring and dramatic huffing had ceased) and Laura strongly suspected that this would change if she admitted just how soundly she had already been rejected.

Besides, she could hardly blame Carmilla for not wanting her; Laura wasn’t about to make things worse by turning her friends against her.

“We’re not staying the whole time, right?” Perry asked, finally pulling away from the mirror to lace an arm around LaFontaine. They beamed.

“Nope. We’ll make ourselves known, stuff our faces, and then get back to the dormitory with _plenty_ of time for you to finish your star charts.”

“You’re the best,” said Perry, pressing a peck of a kiss to their lips.

“I try.”

“Alright, I’m ready,” said Laura, with one last brush of her hair. The volume wasn’t something she was used to—normally she kept it smooth, straight, and either tucked behind her ears or up in a simple ponytail. Now, it puffed up in curls and smelled distinctly of hairspray.

It wasn’t just the dress putting Laura out of her element.

They left the Prefect bathroom in single file, with Perry and LaFontaine giggling about something one had said while Laura was out of earshot, and the walk through the corridors was filled with the unfamiliar echo of their heels.

It was already late ( _fashionably_ so, according to LaFontaine), and this meant that the castle felt off-limits in an exhilarating, rule-breaking sort of way. Which was probably why Laura jumped at the sudden call of voices ahead.

“Fuck _off_ ,” someone was snarling.

“Ooh-hoo, out of bed, you are!” cackled Peeves’ merry tones in reply. “Out of bed and _foul_ -mouthed.”

“I’ll show you a foul mouth.”

It was Carmilla. They rounded the corner, their paces picking up slightly despite themselves, and found her at the top of the main staircase, hands on her hips. Peeves hovered upside-down before her, blocking her downward progress. His face was split in a wicked grin.

“Out of bed, out of bed,” he chanted.

“I have a pass, you fuckwad! Now _shut up.”_

Peeves saw them before Carmilla did. He lifted his round little head and then threw out an arm to point accusingly.

“Ah-ha! Prefects! Prefects here to take you _awaaaay_.”

Carmilla spun, and her expression was dark and sour for one blink of a moment before her eyes locked with Laura’s in recognition. At once, her shoulders relaxed, her gaze darting to LaF and Perry before it returned to sweep over Laura, taking in her outfit.

Laura flushed. Carmilla smiled.

“Yes, Peeves, I’m in deep trouble,” she taunted.

“Carmilla,” greeted Perry. “You look very nice this evening.”

And she did.

She was in a flowy black dress, cut just a hint shorter than Laura’s own. The sleeves were long, with lacy cuffs, and, most importantly, it clung just off of her shoulders, exposing an expanse of creamy, smooth skin that Laura had never seen before.

Carmilla stepped closer, offering simple greetings of her own for Laura’s friends, and Laura worked hard to keep her jaw shut, swallowing hard.

Carmilla hadn’t done much with her hair, but it wasn’t as if _any_ changes were really necessary. She already had perfect, flowing locks that curled naturally in all the right ways. They framed her face darkly, now, a curtain of contrast, and the only real difference was that she had pinned back her bangs.

She looked younger. More vibrant. And—as Laura surveyed her—oddly nervous.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” Laura echoed awkwardly. The gap between them was built on uncertainty, and they ducked in for a hurried hug, neither of them looking at each other afterwards.

“Alright then,” Perry said brightly, as though this were entirely normal and Peeves were not still very much hovering over their heads. “Shall we go?”

Peeves blew a raspberry after them as they trotted down the stairs, but vanished without further intrusion; presumably to find better, easier targets.

They heard the Slug Club party before they saw it, the music drifting strangely out of the dungeons, echoing in all the wrong ways on the wet stone. It was better, once they rounded the corner and fell headfirst into the fray. The band was some popular witches group that made Perry declare “oh yes, I’ve heard them on the wireless!” and the velvet-cloaked room was warm and loud in a way that was not entirely unpleasant.

They were swarmed with servers almost at once, as though they had given off a vibe of fresh blood, and Laura found herself eating a number of things out of her hands without entirely knowing what they were. Everything was delicious, if not slightly odd. She would not have thought to pair onion with chocolate—or perhaps that had been two separate hors-devours that were not meant to go together. It was so hard to tell.

Carmilla stuck to her side, their arms touching but not their hands, and together they navigated through the center of the crowd and found reprieve on the sidelines, next to a brim-full bowl of aquamarine punch.

LaFontaine accepted a glass, but the others politely declined. The bowl was letting off what looked like wisps of smoke, and after LaF had drank a hearty sip (despite Perry’s stammered protests) their ears blew out hearty streams of the stuff.

They grinned, red-nosed, “Wicked.”

Laura eyed the bowl warily, “How does it… taste?”

“Oh, dreadful,” LaF said with a wave of their hand, “But that’s not the point.”

She was sure LaFontaine was ready to rattle off whatever the point _was_ —and it was undoubtedly some clever mix of alcohol, syrup, and charm-work—but Laura was saved from hearing the details by the arrival of several familiar faces.

“Laura, LaF, Perry!” Lily rattled off, hugging each of them in turn. She ignored Carmilla entirely. “I’m so glad you came. I think Slughorn is already drunk, and the last time that happened…”

“Right, someone should keep an eye on the salamander cages,” LaFontaine filled in, “Come on, Perr, let’s see if we can find him before he’s too far gone to remember that we showed up.”

They ducked off, hand-in-hand, and Laura felt the room shrink in on her as the four of them were left to their own devices.

And there were four, because Lily was not alone: Severus Snape was with her, looking as sullen as ever. He and Carmilla eyed each other, neither of their expressions particularly readable.

“So,” said Lily, addressing Laura directly, “Did you just get here?”

“Oh, um, yeah. We were running a little late.”

“Well, trust me when I say you didn’t miss anything. These are more bearable than the club meetings, sure, but still not exactly my cup of tea.”

Laura hadn’t realized there were _any_ fourth years in the Slug Club, but she supposed it would make sense that Lily would be an exception to that rule. Remus had mentioned a number of times that she was brilliant—it was one of the many reasons she was so wildly outside of Potter’s league.

“You know Severus, don’t you?”

She glanced at Snape, who had gone stiff at the mention of his name.

“We’ve met,” Laura said slowly. She wasn’t even sure that was true—had they ever _actually_ met, or had they always been distant not-quite-enemies, aware of each other but never interacting directly?

Lily’s attention shifted to Carmilla for the barest of seconds, and then she forced a thin smile, “Laura, can I speak with you for a moment? Privately?”

“Um,” said Laura, glancing self-consciously at Carmilla. Carmilla was not giving any sort of cues, though. She was leaning casually against the punch table, legs crossed and gaze distant. “Okay?”

Lily ushered her away, and she couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder to watch as Snape gravitated closer and began murmuring low, urgent words at Carmilla. She looked almost angry with him, as she bit something back. He shook his head, started on a fresh string of words that Laura was too far away to catch, and too incompetent to read off his lips—

“Laura.”

She turned to Lily, who was waiting with crossed arms and a raised eyebrow.

“Oh. Yeah. Um, what’s wrong?”

“Are you dating Carmilla Karnstein?”

The question was like a bucket of ice dumping over her shoulders. Laura went rigid.

“What?”

“Are you dating her?” Lily repeated, arms still crossed and expression still haughty.

“No.”

“It looks like you are.”

Laura had always liked Lily. She was bright, and friendly, and it wasn’t uncommon to find her helping first years with their homework in the common room. The way she stood up to Potter’s presumptuous male overtures had long been a source of inspiration as much as it was a form of entertainment for the rest of Gryffindor.

She was startled to find her so accusing, now.

“What, are you homophobic or something?” Laura stammered out, barely thinking over the words. She didn’t believe it—of anyone at the school, Lily would be low on her list for being unaccepting, and, besides, it wasn’t as if this were the muggle world. Wizards had been welcoming gay marriage since the 1400s.

“No,” Lily scoffed, “I’m worried about you.”

Laura was fairly certain she should be insulted, right about now.

“I can take care of myself, thanks.”

She went to turn away—eager to get back to Carmilla before the other girl was pulled away by more interesting company—but Lily caught her by the arm, holding her firmly in place. She was surprisingly strong.

“You don’t understand. She’s dangerous, Laura. You need to listen to me.”

Laura froze, her thoughts racing ahead.

“What do you know?” she demanded, her own hand flying up to seize Lily’s arm. She gripped back with twice the force Lily had used on her, hardly aware of the action under the weight of her panic.

Lily fell back a step, her hard gaze faltering.

“What does that mean?” the red-haired girl asked, frowning.

“Laura!” Carmilla had materialized beside her, dark eyes cloudy with concern. Laura released her hold on Lily at once, jumping back. Lily looked sharply away. “Are you okay?” Carmilla asked.

“Fine,” said Laura, but the word came out tight and off-pitch. Carmilla’s eyes narrowed.

“Come on, your friends found the regular punch bowl over there. We should get back to them.”

Laura’s heart hammered as Carmilla led her away, and for once it was not because of the way Carmilla’s fingers fell lightly around her wrist.

Lily _knew_ ; she was almost certain of it. And, if she knew, then it meant Carmilla was in danger. Surely Lily wouldn’t run around telling people, would she? Was this what Carmilla had been worried about, the other day, when she asked about rumors?

She had half a mind to warn Carmilla right here, but she remembered herself before they had reached the other side of the room—remembered why that would be a terrible, insane sort of idea. It helped that LaFontaine and Perry were upon them at once, pressing punch glasses into their hands and raving about the puff pastries.

“What did Snape want with you?” asked LaFontaine.

The question nearly made Carmilla choke on her punch, the purple juice jumping back into the glass as she sputtered. She shot a look at Laura, her lips tight.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Aren’t the two of you friends?” LaF pressed. Laura wanted to hit their arm, or step on their shoe, or do _something_ , but the question had already been asked and Carmilla was already shifting anxiously on her feet. Perry was frozen, mid-bite on a mini quiche of some sort.

“We were,” Carmilla forced out. She cleared her throat, “We don’t see eye-to-eye on… a lot of things.”

“You aren’t friends anymore?” Laura asked, before she could help herself. This was news.

Now that she thought about it, though, when _was_ the last time she had seen Carmilla with her old Slytherin crowd? Laura spent most of her time, these days, scanning the corridors for a glimpse of the other girl; every time she found her, it seemed she was either alone or with her Ravenclaw teammates. Even the eager fans had drifted away, somewhat, since her rise to glory.

Carmilla took a long drink from her punch, draining nearly half the glass.

“Not exactly, no,” she muttered, at long last. She eyed the remainder of the drink, shrugging, “It’s not a big loss, trust me.”

Laura did trust her. She nodded quickly, and touched Carmilla’s arm without thinking about it. The action had the intended effect: Carmilla lifted her stare to meet Laura’s eyes, and she smiled encouragingly. Slowly, Carmilla smiled back.

LaF was distracted, on the receiving end of a whispered conversation with Perry (no doubt in regards to their pushy questioning) and Carmilla shifted her stance so that her back was to the both of them.

“Did Evans—what did she want you for?” There was a pleading in Carmilla’s eyes, a fear that she was holding back. It trembled in the fingers that were worrying the sleeves of her dress. She looked small in it, now, her bare shoulders prickling with goosebumps.

Laura couldn’t tell her. Not when the idea of her knowing had that wide-eyed, desperate fear eating away at Carmilla’s light.

The warning could wait for another day.

Laura could talk to Lily. She could sort this out, herself, and save Carmilla having to worry about anything.

She didn’t deserve that. Not on top of everything else Laura had put her through.

“It was nothing,” Laura promised.

The song changed, the witches on the stage hammering out the chords of an upbeat, pulse-pumping song. People shifted around them, and Laura caught Carmilla by the hands before she could ask any more questions.

“Come on,” she urged. “I believe you told me there would be dancing.”

///

The night before she was due to speak with McGonagall, Laura had only managed to discard half of the career pamphlets. None of the remaining options seemed particularly appealing, even if they weren’t outright ‘no’s.

Perry kept insisting that she was perfectly suited for the Ministry, outlining the different departments and promising that she would never have to mess with Potions or Herbology. While this was tempting, Laura was still hardly proficient at Charms, which seemed a little too relevant to ignore.

“You don’t have to perform complex spells all the time, you know,” Perry said as she packed up her things for the night. “A lot of Ministry work is very procedural. You would get to help make important decisions. What about the Department of Magical Games and Sports? You could help organize international Quidditch diplomacy.”

“Maybe,” Laura said. She could not help thinking that she would really prefer to be _playing_ Quidditch. She knew that McGonagall would not be impressed with her, though, if she walked into the meeting and said she wanted to be a sports star.

She could already hear the response: _“Yes, Miss Hollis, you and everyone else. Now, what are your_ realistic _goals?”_

She had made no further progress, by the time her advising session rolled around on Tuesday afternoon. Laura waited in the hall, clutching her small stack of pamphlets and trying to get better control over her breathing. When Eugene Goff opened the door to McGonagall’s office, he looked slightly pale. He didn’t acknowledge her as he trooped past, muttering about how he was never going to get an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in Potions.

“Miss Hollis,” McGonagall greeted with a tip of her head. She gestured to the open seat. Laura took it, trying not to think of the number of times she had been in this very spot to be punished, and how she might have preferred a detention over this.

“Well, this meeting, as you well know, is to discuss any career ideas you might have,” began McGonagall briskly. “This will help determine which subjects you will need to carry on with throughout the rest of your time here at Hogwarts. Your O.W.L. grades will determine your ability to continue lessons, of course, and then your N.E.W.T.s will determine your career path upon completing your Hogwarts education. Have you given much thought to what you’d like to do when you leave Hogwarts?”

Laura swallowed. Her mouth felt very dry.

“Um. Well I know I don’t want to do anything with potions.”

McGonagall flipped open a file, and Laura got the nervous sensation that her entire life was summed up within the pages. She wondered if she should be concerned that it seemed rather thick. What sort of information did her teachers take down? Were all of her detention records and lost house points tracked in there?

“That is a wise choice. I see here that Potions is not your strong-suit. Professor Slughorn has marked you at ‘Acceptable’ bordering on ‘Poor’ over the last four years. Now, you’ve done decent work in my class—‘Exceeds Expectations’ third year, ‘Acceptable’ for the rest, and similarly in Charms and Herbology. Several ‘Exceeds Expectations’ and an ‘Outstanding’ in History of Magic—have you considered any fields, there?”

“What?” Laura asked dumbly. _History of Magic?_ She almost wanted to ask McGonagall if she could see that paper for herself, but she suspected that would be crossing a boundary.

“Your essays have been consistently awarded high marks—Professor Binns is rather proud of your prose, too, from his comments on your performance…”

Binns was proud of her? Laura was certain she had plunged into an alternate dimension. She had been unaware Binns knew any of their names, let alone paid attention to their _progress_ over the years.

“Your essays have been of high quality in my class as well,” McGonagall was saying. “A little… _opinionated_ ,  at times, but well-written. There are a number of possibilities you could consider—” she dug out a few leaflets, thicker and less gimmicky than the crumpled pamphlets in Laura’s lap. “I advise you to consider a career as a Scholar, or perhaps even as a Professor. You do have a way of getting through to people… even the difficult ones. There are, as well, a number of publications you could work for. Wizarding Journals are becoming popular again, and magazines—though you could find something a little more substantial than the likes of the _Quibbler_ or _Witch Weekly_ —and there’s always the _Daily Prophet_.”

“The _Daily Prophet?_ ” Laura repeated, dumbstruck.

“Yes, Miss Hollis. Does that not interest you?”

“I—no, of course it does.”

“Very well. You’ll be wanting to know about your courses, I expect—if this is a path you wish to follow, you’ll need to achieve at least three N.E.W.T.s. Charms will be a must, of course, and History of Magic… I should warn you, if you wish to continue with Transfiguration, that I do not accept students who do not achieve an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ in their Ordinary Wizarding Levels into my N.E.W.T. course. I see you’ve done well in Muggle Studies, so you’ll want to carry on with that. Were there any other courses you had questions on, Miss Hollis?”

Laura, still dumbstruck, stammered, “So… I wouldn’t need Potions?”

McGonagall quirked her lip in a faint smile. “No, Miss Hollis. You would not need Potions.”

A warm feeling settled in her stomach, chasing out the cold for the first time in days. “What about Herbology?”

“Well, you’ve been receiving ‘Acceptable’ marks, and it’s a good skillset to have. That choice would be yours to make. As for your other classes—Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes, Defense Against the Dark Arts—”

“I’ll want to keep that one,” Laura said hurriedly. “Is there—will there be a requirement to get into the N.E.W.T. level?”

“Well, as Professor Durkin will not be with us next year, that is not something I can say for certain. I can say, however, that past Professors have all required at least an ‘Exceeds Expectations.’ If you wish to continue into the N.E.W.T. level, you’ll need to do a bit of work.”

“I do want to continue,” Laura said. It would never have mattered, if Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn’t relevant to her career. There was something she had said years ago, to LaF and Perry, and it still held true: it was the most important class they were taking—for all of them.

“Very well. Did you have any other questions?”

As if breaking out of a trance, Laura shook her head, and stood to leave.

“Miss Hollis?” Laura turned back. “I had wondered—did you make any progress with that boggart?”

She had nearly forgotten that it had been McGonagall who had arranged the extra practice for her, months and months ago. With Quidditch and the O.W.L.s, she hadn’t had time to think about the Patronus Charm.

“Oh. Not—not really. I got something to appear, but it was just the once.”

McGonagall nodded. “It is very advanced magic. I had only meant to tell you that such a thing might earn you extra points in your exams. Please send in LaFontaine on your way out.”

///

Neither Perry nor LaFontaine had been surprised at McGonagall’s suggestion that Laura go into journalism. Perry insisted she should have thought of it herself, and gifted Laura her stack of recent _Witch Weekly_ ’s. LaF pointed out that she could go into Quidditch reporting, and offered Laura a much more appealing pile of dog-eared sports magazines, which she took to reading between classes.

As they had every day for the past week, though, all thoughts of careers shifted from her mind as she entered the familiar, empty classroom on the third floor and set her bag on a desk.

Laura clutched her wand at her side, pushed her hair back behind her ears, and took a steadying breath. The boggart’s trunk rattled. She pointed at the lock, and felt a familiar thrill of success as it sprung open for her nonverbal command.

Her triumph was short lived. The Dementor rose mountainously before her, letting out loud, sucking breaths. It’s cloak billowed.

 _“Expecto Patronum!”_ she cried, aiming her wand directly at the great, dark figure. A faint puff of silver emanated from the end of her wand, and dissipated like smoke. _“Expecto Patronum!”_ she said again. She pictured her mother smiling at her, but the Dementor was distorting the memory—her mother was gasping, her face going slack, she was falling—Laura stepped back, shaking her head.

She tried to picture the day she found out she was a witch, the day Dad took her to Diagon Alley for the first time, meeting LaFontaine and Perry—but there was Carmilla, sneering in the compartment door…

_“Expecto Patronum!”_

The Dementor paused, as if considering that last memory.

She replaced it at once with Carmilla sitting beside her at the Gryffindor table, as she had taken to doing every morning, like clockwork. Carmilla, on the Quidditch pitch. Carmilla, smiling that perfect, soft smile at her, eyes shimmering under the pale, colored lights of Slughorn’s party. Carmilla, one hand in hers, the other at her waist, twirling her about in a perfect waltz that Laura never would have imagined she knew—

_“Expecto Patronum!”_

The Dementor fell back, knocked to the ground by the powerful leap of a silvery, ghostly form—four legs and a lithe body—it burst into smoke with the boggart, leaving glittering wisps in its place, which faded with the slow grace of falling embers.

A torn cloak was all that remained, and Laura tossed it into the trunk with a flick of her wand, shutting and locking the thing firmly. It only took a moment for the thing to begin rattling once more, the boggart revitalized and as irritable as ever in its prison.

“So, it’s a cat,” said a voice.

Laura spun, her hair frazzled and her breaths still quick, and found Remus Lupin hovering in the doorway. He smiled a small, crooked smile of apology.

“Sorry. LaFontaine told me you were practicing, and I thought I’d join. Didn’t mean to spy.”

Laura shook her head. “It’s fine. That was—well, let’s say I’d rather you have seen that than yesterday’s performance.”

He nodded at the trunk. “How long have you been able to do that?”

“Today,” Laura answered, the word bubbling over a short laugh of disbelief. “That was the first time it actually, fully _worked.”_ She paused a moment, letting the reality of her victory sink in. “You think it was a cat? I didn’t get a very good look. It was awfully… _big.”_

“I’d wager it was more like a panther,” said Remus. For some reason, his eyes glittered with humor at the words. “You know, they say that a Patronus is a representation of a person’s soul.”

“I’ve read that,” Laura agreed slowly. “Is that… a good thing? That mine is some sort of… big, wild cat?”

She had never thought of herself as anything wild, or vicious, or even graceful. Wasn’t that what panthers were? Maybe it was a Gryffindor thing? Some sort of manifestation of the ‘courage and stubbornness’ the Sorting Hat had told her about?

Remus gave his head a little shake, still smiling. “They also say that Patronuses are reflections of our greatest hopes and desires. The things we live for. The things we love.”

Unbidden, Laura’s memories drew themselves back to full height—all of her peaceful moments with Carmilla, all of the ones that made her heart swell in ways that hurt and soothed at the same time. Her cat-like grace, the slow blink of her eyes when she was relaxed, or curious.

“Oh,” she said quietly. She looked away.

“Don’t give up on her,” said Remus. He had opened the door to leave, his shaggy hair falling low over his eyes. “Sometimes she’s an idiot… but don’t give up, okay?”

Lips parting in surprise, Laura nodded. “I won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to share your thoughts below or drop me a line on tumblr: [jg-firefly](https://jg-firefly.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Stay awesome, friends :)


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